Florence Air & Missile Museum
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Florence Air & Missile Museum
The Florence Air & Missile Museum was a large aviation museum which was located at the entrance to the Florence Regional Airport (FLO), in Florence, South Carolina.
Florence was a WWII training field for A-26 Invader attack aircraft.
Because of its former military connection, and its excellent runways, the military was able to fly in aircraft and leave them at the Museum as their were retired from service. This enabled the Museum to build a very large collection.
The Museum built up a large collection of WWII and Cold War era US Military aircraft and space hardware.
The Museum was located on the main road from Florence to Myrtle Beach. As a result, the museum enjoyed a large number of visitors (up to 300,000 per year) until I-95 was built. Once the interstate was built, the number of visitors began a steady decline. As the visitors began to decline, the appearance of the museum began to deteriorate.
In the 1996/1997 time frame the airport wanted to build a new entrance and decided to close the museum with little advance notice. The Museum was closed in December 1997.
The valuable and rare collection was quickly picked over by various museums in the United States and most of it was scattered outside the state of South Carolina. Today there is no aviation museum in South Carolina which is anywhere near the size of the Florence Museum.
[edit] Aircraft & Missiles in the Collection
This is only a partial listing of known museum pieces.
- BTD-1 (Now on display at Wings of Eagles, Horseheads, NY)
- EC-121K Lockheed Constellation (USN - this aircraft flew the final US Military Constellation mission - Front 50' now in Charlotte NC BuN 141292 c/n 4416)
- Honest John (2) (Now on display at Carolinas Aviation Museum)
- Regulus I (Now on display at Carolinas Aviation Museum)
- Douglas B-26 Invader #64-17671
- Douglas BTD-1 Destroyer #04959
- Boeing KC-97G Stratofreighter AF#52-02624 Ser#16655
- Grumman HU-16 Albatross #51-07212
- Grumman C1-A COD #136790
- Boeing B-47B Stratojet #50-00062
- Martin B-57 Canberra #52-01459
- Douglas WB-66D Destroyer #53-00431
- Lockheed T-33 (P-80) Shooting Star #53-06089
- Republic F-84F Thunderstreak #52-06553
- North American F-86 Sabre #52-05737
- Northrop F-89J Scorpion #53-02646
- McDonnell F-101F Voodoo #56-00243 (Now on display at Carolinas Aviation Museum)
- Convair F102 Delta Dagger #53-01788 (Now on display at Carolinas Aviation Museum)
- Lockheed F-104B Starfighter #57-01301
- Grumman F11F Tiger #141790
- Piaseki CH21B Workhorse (Flying Banana) #54-04003
- Sikorsky HO4S Chickasaw #125506 (Now on display at Carolinas Aviation Museum)
- Sikorsky CH-34 #55-04496 (Now on display at Carolinas Aviation Museum)
- Martin TB-61C Matador (Now on display at Carolinas Aviation Museum)
- Martin SM-68 Titan Ballistic Missile #4499
- Ryan AQM-91A Reconnaissance Drone
- Ryan Firebee Model G Drone
- WWII Era WACO Assault Glider skeleton (We think?)
- F101A Simulator
- T-28 Simulator
