С��è��ý

An old С��è��ý friend departs after 30 years

Story by Janis Nichols. Photos by Marshall Pryor.

When you make the winning bid at an auction, you sometimes have to arrange for a later pick up of your auction item. In this case, that pick up happened at С��è��ý’s Rock Creek Campus and it involved a WWII-era airplane.

The Siskiyou Smokejumper Base Museum had the winning bid for the Aviation Maintenance Technology Program’s last remaining Beech 18/C-45 Expeditor from its original air fleet. Last week (June 13), the museum hauled off the important historical aircraft () from Rock Creek to take it to its new life as a static display near the entrance of the museum in Cave Junction near Grants Pass.

After several hours of loading and lashing the “old С��è��ý friend” to a tow trailer by museum staff, the last remaining C-45 left Rock Creek where it had been parked for more than 30 years. Now, it will be a featured aircraft at the smokejumper museum in southern Oregon. The first smoke jumper base in Oregon for the U.S. Forest Service used C-45 Expeditors for 22 years to drop smokejumpers into difficult terrain to fight wildfires.

С��è��ý’s old friend was in good hands, too. This wasn’t the first time that Harold Hartman and his crew from the Siskiyou Smokejumper Base Museum had experience loading a C-45 onto the same trailer and successfully off-loading it at the airport museum.

“Knowing that Harold had done this before was somewhat encouraging,” said Aviation Maintenance Technology instructor Marshall Pryor. “I don’t mind saying that I wouldn’t believe the full load made it to Cave Junction until I got the follow up call from Harold.”

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•