The foundation bought the airplane—one of four C-54s in the U.S. that are airworthy—for $125,000.

“I finally located this airplane in Canada in December 1992,” said Chopp. “We ferried it to New Jersey in mid-1993. We started flying the airplane in late 1994 and painted it in early 1995.”

The Foundation has a self decribed "Mission of History, Education and Remembrance,”   Our purpose is to celebrate this pivotal point in history that’s almost forgotten in schools today. We want to educate kids about what happened in the last half of the 20th century, about the Cold War that was spawned from this event.

Thirty-one Americans gave their lives

During the airlift, 101 fatalities occurred, including 31 Americans, mostly due to crashes.

"We want to share their story by putting it inside an airlift airplane,” said Kevin Kearney. “Some people will build a museum and then try to attract people to their venue. What Tim has created with this organization is a museum you can bring to the people, so it gets more exposure by traveling the country. We’ve traveled from Canada to California to Florida, and to what used to be Ramey Air Force Base in Puerto Rico, to spread our message.” "We even took the C-54 overseas to Berlin in 1998"

While Chopp’s mission is clear, the history of the airplane isn’t. “We have the records from the Navy showing the airplane left Guam for Berlin,” said Chopp. “Then two years’ worth of records disappeared. We have a letter from the Navy indicating that it did, in fact, participate in the airlift.

The Navy had three squadrons in the airlift, VR-3, VR-6 and VR-8. The VR-6 and VR-8 squadrons were called corridor squadrons, and VR-3 was a support squadron. The foundation’s airplane was part of the support squadron. Its main job was to provide transatlantic support between Westover Air Reserve Base, Mass. (CEF), and Rhein-Main Air Base, in Frankfort, Germany.

The Douglas Aircraft Company built this particular C-54E in 1945 for the Army Air Force. Six months later, they turned it over to the Navy. The Marine Corps flew it as an R5D out of the Marine Corps Air Station in El Toro, Calif., until it went into storage in 1973. Converted in 1976 to a civilian airplane, it flew auto parts in Canada until 1991, when it went back into storage. The foundation acquired it the following year.

“We began with very primitive displays,” said Chopp. “It’s been a slow process of building it to what it is today. What you see now is 22 years’ worth of work.”

The mission is getting the word out

The organization is very aggressive about presenting the educational aspect of the Berlin Airlift to the public.

“Doing about 30 shows, we put about 120 hours a year on the airframe,” he said. “The airplane is more than 70 years old, but it only has 27,600 hours on the airframe, so it’s still relatively young.”

They do other events besides air shows.

“We did a salute to veterans in Norfolk, Va. recently, and we’ll go to airport openings and special educational events for school kids,” he said. “We did one in Puerto Rico in March. We go to air shows for the funding, but we want to be a flying classroom. We want to focus on our mission—to educate folks, especially children.”

“The world of transports in the warbird community is a lonely world,” he said. “We have to slug it out every year. We don’t have the bomber attraction. We’ve had this challenge with us from the beginning. It never ends, and we never let up on the mission to educate. We have a saying: ‘It’s all about the mission.’ We do what’s necessary to get the mission done. We’ve done our job if someone walks away from the airplane saying, “Wow, I learned something. It was well worth my time.'”

Finding the right people

The Berlin Airlift Historical Foundation has about 500 members, but Chopp said that like most groups, a small number do the actual work.

“We try to select crews that are here for the right reasons,” he said. “It’s tough to find the right people. We want someone who will do the glory jobs as well as the dirty jobs—people who are enthusiastic about the work, whether it’s sweeping the hangar floor, cleaning a toilet or helping show the plane. We want people who willingly go beyond their comfort zone to fix the airplane.”

Kearney said the team consists of “average people.”

“I’m a high school teacher and an aircraft and power plant mechanic,” he said. “Tim’s a retired corporate pilot and an A&P. Steve Grubesich, our chief loadmaster and mechanic, is also a teacher, and Frank Benson, our ground support and maintenance person, is a retired telephone company employee. We have volunteers from all walks of life.”

Chopp, who had his pilot’s license before he entered the Army, became an Army mechanic during the Vietnam years.

“I really wanted to be an Army pilot but it wasn’t in the cards,” said Chopp. “Now I’m really glad I didn’t, because it laid the ground work for this.”

After Vietnam, Chopp earned additional ratings and worked in corporate aviation. He’s also the aircraft’s commander.

“I love working on it as well as flying it,” he said.

The Big Bad Boeing!

In 1996, the Foundation purchased Boeing C-97G 52-2718 from Grace Aire Medical Foundation of Corpus Christie, TX.

Nicknamed "Angel of Deliverance", the C-97 joined the fleet as a traveling exhibit to the Cold War. 

Painted in the colors of YC-97A 45-59595, the lone C-97 used in the airlift, the Big Boeing is the largest piston powered airplane airworthy today. 
With its 28 cylinder Pratt and Whitney R4360 engines, it is also the single most complex airplane on the warbird circuit.  It takes special people to keep an airplane of this sheer magnitude airworthy.  Everything is more complicated, larger and unforgiving.  We're happy to report that as of November 2017, the "Angel" is fully operational after many years of work on it. 

We hope folks will recognize the difficulty we face and hope they would pitch in top help.  We want them to "Be A Part of Something BIG" and appreciate the uniqueness of an airworthy C-97.