Photo of the Day - Stearman Model 4D

[tbutler]

From the Kansas Aviation Museum, Wichita KS.

In this position, it looks almost like a caged bird in a zoo; wings straining at the pillars keeping it locked in.

The museum is housed in the terminal building from the original Wichita Municipal Airport; in the '40s it was one of the busiest airports in the country, at a convenient refueling site for aircraft making cross-country trips. In the 1950s it was taken over by the USAF as McConnell AFB, with the former terminal used as an administration building. In the 1980s it was abandoned by the Air Force, before being taken over by a volunteer group and being turned into a museum. While many areas of the building have been refurbished and brought up to the Art Deco look they had in the airport's civilian heyday, other parts are still very raw, and you can see that in this shot.