90.1 FM San Luis Obispo | 91.7 FM Paso Robles | 91.1 FM Cayucos | 95.1 FM Lompoc | 90.9 FM Avila
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Journeys of Discovery: Tennessee’s “best-kept-secret” Beechcraft aircraft Heritage museum

The Beechcraft Aircraft Company has been based in Wichita, Kansas since it was founded in 1932, while the iconic Beechcraft Heritage Museum is located in the rural Tennessee town of Tullahoma not far from the Alabama border.

The connection is that Walter Beech was born and raised in nearby Pulaski, Tennessee. The museum was originally formed in 1973 to showcase the iconic Beechcraft Staggerwing biplane.

Over the years the breadth of classic Beechcraft airplanes featured at the museum’s 60,000 square-foot facility has expanded to include the classic V-tail Beechcraft Bonanzas, the iconic twin Beech 18, the Baron and King Air, the futuristic 2000 Starship and a Beech T-34 Naval trainer, with a total of more than 35 classics of the sky on display.

Join correspondent Tom Wilmer to learn the rest of the story with Charles Parish, President at the Beechcraft Heritage Museum located at the Tullahoma Regional Airport—that served in a previous incarnation as a WWII Army Air Corps’ B-17 training base.Underwriting support for Journeys of Discovery provided by Nashville's Big Back Yard economic initiative focused on rural communities in the southwest quarter of Tennessee and the Shoals Region of Northern Alabama.

You are invited to subscribe to the Lowell Thomas Award-winning podcast travel show, Journeys of Discovery with Tom Wilmer, featured on the NPR Podcast DirectoryiHeartRadioApple Podcast.

Tom Wilmer produces on-air content for Issues & Ideas airing over KCBX and is producer and host of the six-time Lowell Thomas award-winning NPR podcast Journeys of Discovery with Tom Wilmer. Recorded live on-location across America and around the world, the podcasts feature the arts, culture, music, nature, history, science, wine & spirits, brewpubs, and the culinary arts--everything from baseball to exploring South Pacific atolls to interviewing the real Santa Claus in the Arctic.