Qualla: North Carolina Aviation Museum

North Carolina Aviation Museum: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 2 Sept, 2010, CC BY-SA 3.0. Jim Peddycord did not live to see what his museum became. In 1994 the Asheboro businessman started the Foundation for Aircraft Conservation with a couple of his warbirds in an empty hangar at Asheboro Regional Airport. In 1996 he organized the first air show as a fundraiser. The second air show was scheduled for June 5, 1997. The day before the event, June 4, Peddycord and his son Rick took two aircraft up for practice and collided in mid-air. Both died. The foundation took Peddycord's name in his honor. Another local businessman, Craig Branson, picked up the work. The hangars kept filling with airplanes. The fly-in kept happening on the second Saturday in June. The museum kept going - because in aviation, that is what you do.

Image: 2 Sept, 2010 | CC BY-SA 3.0

North Carolina Aviation Museum: Two Hangars Worth of Stories

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit RadioFan (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0. Almost every aircraft in the museum is privately owned and on loan, and almost every one is kept in flight-worthy condition. The collection turns over - planes come, planes go. But the standouts have included a Piper J-3 Flitfire (NC1776) that Orville Wright flew on a 1943 War Bo...

Image: RadioFan (talk) | CC BY-SA 3.0

North Carolina Aviation Museum: The B-25 Project

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 2 Sept, 2010, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 1998 Craig Branson - the businessman who took over the foundation after the Peddycords' deaths - bought a B-25 Mitchell bomber for restoration and got the community behind building a second hangar to hold it. The Mitchell was the World War II twin-engine medium bomber Jimmy Do...

Image: 2 Sept, 2010 | CC BY-SA 3.0

North Carolina Aviation Museum: The Fly-In

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 2 Sept, 2010, CC BY-SA 3.0. Since 1996 the museum has hosted a fly-in on the second Saturday in June. Visiting pilots fly in from across the Carolinas and Virginia. There are free small-plane rides for children, helicopter rides, a racing car exhibit, ham radio demonstrations, remote-control aircraft demons...

Image: 2 Sept, 2010 | CC BY-SA 3.0

North Carolina Aviation Museum: Not the Other One

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 2 Sept, 2010, CC BY-SA 3.0. The North Carolina Aviation Museum is in Asheboro - not to be confused with the Carolinas Aviation Museum, which is in Charlotte and which most North Carolinians know as the home of the Airbus A320 that Captain Sullenberger landed in the Hudson River. The Asheboro museum is small...

Image: 2 Sept, 2010 | CC BY-SA 3.0