SILVER SPRINGS - The next time you're driving along Highway 95 Alternate between Fallon and Carson City, slow down when you pass the Silver Springs Airport on the east side of the road.
Lying before you at the edge of the 6,000-foot runway is a 40-year-old U.S. Air Force F-111 "Aardvark" jet fighter-bomber that is to become the centerpiece of a new museum at the airport next year.
Named the Wings and Wheels Museum, the collection will include more than 60 historic aircraft and military vehicles, which will be housed in three large buildings, according to Rick Clemens, the founder of the non-profit museum and a direct descendant of Orion Clemens, the secretary of the 1861-1864 Nevada Territory and the brother of famed author Samuel Clemens who wrote under the name Mark Twain.
A private pilot, airplane collector and president of a Carson City manufacturing firm, Clemens said site plans and architectural drawings for the museum have been completed and construction will begin in the early spring.
The museum, he added, will be run by the Carson City-based Cactus Air Force, a volunteer organization dedicated to the preservation of historic aircraft and vehicles. It was named for the Cactus Air Force of World War II, U.S. Army, Marine Corps, Navy and Royal New Zealand Air Force air squadrons based on the island of Guadalcanal that saw combat against the Japanese in the Pacific.
In addition to the F-111 Aardvark, which flew 36 combat missions against the Iraqi military during Operation Desert Shield in 1991, the museum collection will include a wide range of other military airplanes such as a Korean War-era F-86E Sabrejet and a TH-1G Cobra helicopter.
The military vehicles will include armored and scout cars, jeeps, trucks and a Humvee ambulance, Clemens added.
Most of the planes and vehicles are currently being stored in a Dayton warehouse. The wings of the F-111, which were removed when the plane was transported to the airport, also are in storage.
Kay Bennett, who has owned and managed the Silver Springs Airport with her husband, Hale, since 1989, said it was one of several fields, including the facility that is now Fallon Naval Air Station, that were constructed by the Army in 1941 to train pilots, navigators and ground crews.
Kay Bennett, who served three terms as a member of the Carson City Board of Supervisors from 1988 to 2000, is a private pilot and former operating room nurse at Carson-Tahoe Regional Medical Center. Hale Bennett, a former Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles official, served as a WWII Army combat pilot in Europe, was for a time the personal pilot of Gen. George Patton and flew a B-29 Superfortress out of the Silver Springs field in 1945.
"When we took over the operation of the Silver Springs Airport, it had not been used for many years," Kay Bennett said. "The gravel runway was so choked with weeds that you could hardly see it from the highway. We had the runway lengthened and paved, installed lights for night operations and put in facility to fuel the aircraft."
"Today, we have 16 aircraft based here and the field is also used by NAS Fallon pilots for training, the Civil Air Patrol, REMSA, search and rescue units and fire spotters. We also work with the Airplane Owners and Pilots Association in sponsoring a youth group called Young Eagles whose members hope to become pilots someday," she said.
The airport also sponsors the annual Lyon County Fly-In which this year brought in more than 100 pilots and their aircraft from a dozen states, said Kay Bennett.
"We are looking forward to getting the museum built and open to the public. It will bring visitors here from all over the country and will be a great addition to regional tourism," she
stated.