Atwater, CA — After years of waiting, the Castle Air Museum in Atwater received a “gem” of a plane on Monday to add to its collection of nearly 70 historical aircraft.
An F-16 Fighting Falcon that served with the 144th Fighter Wing of the California Air National Guard out of Fresno arrived at the museum’s restoration hangar after a journey from a military storage facility in Tucson, Ariz.
“It’s been a long and winding road, but we’re reaping the rewards today,” said Joe Pruzzo, the museum CEO. “(The Fighting Falcon) joins a host of world-class aircraft – some of which only two or three are left in existence.”
Pruzzo said the Fighting Falcon has strong ties to the Valley, not only for its time in the Air National Guard in Fresno, but also because of a businessman who logged nearly 50 hours in the plane.
One of the key boosters of the drive to bring the F-16 to Castle was retired Col. Larry McKoane, a former fighter wing commander with the 144th and now president of Clawson Honda in Fresno, Pruzzo said.
McKoane, who was with the Air National Guard from 1983 to 2014, in fact piloted the aircraft to Arizona in 1994 after it was decommissioned, Pruzzo said.
“It is definitely kind of surreal to see an airplane that you flew so long ago down in a museum,” McKoane, 53, said. “It’s not something I ever expected.”
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