Hickory Aviation Museum: Warbirds of the Piedmont

The Hickory Aviation Museum opened in two thousand seven in the old terminal building of Hickory Regional Airport, founded by members of the Sabre Society, a group of aviation enthusiasts who had started in nineteen ninety-one by restoring a Navy jet displayed at a Taylorsville ballpark. From that single airplane, they built the largest aviation museum in North Carolina. That first airplane was a North American F J Three Fury. The museum opened to the public on May nineteenth, two thousand seven, and the society also hosted an airshow at the airport from nineteen ninety three to two thousand four.

The collection spans nine decades of American military aviation, from World War Two propeller fighters to an F slash A Eighteen Hornet retired from the Blue Angels in twenty twenty. The interior holds artifacts from the First World War through the present, including a Wall of Honor for local veterans and a display honoring Bill and George Preddy, brothers from Greensboro who became aces in the Second World War. The museum began in the former airport terminal and moved into a new facility in twenty twenty-six, a compact but serious collection that punches well above its regional profile. The new building cost about twenty two million dollars, fifteen million from the state and seven million from fundraising, and the fifty three thousand square foot facility opened on May sixteenth, twenty twenty six.