COLUMBUS, Ind.–In conjunction with Aviation Day last Saturday, the Atterbury-Bakalar Air Museum officially opened its new Thomas Vickers and John C. Walter Artifact and Restoration Center. The new facility will give museum staff extra room to store artifacts and restore them. It bears the names of two of the museum’s founders.
Vickers was recognized at a Friday ceremony, while Walter, who died in December 2017, was honored posthumously on Saturday with the visit of the B-17 bomber, “Yankee Lady,” from the Yankee Air Museum in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Walter was a B-17 pilot in World War II, and before his passing, he had arranged for volunteers of the museum to have complimentary flights aboard the B-17 during Aviation Day.