Watch as German aerial history takes flight today

Published 11:52 pm Friday, September 18, 2009

EVERETT — Vintage aircraft from Paul Allen’s Flying Heritage Collection — including WWII German fighters — will be on display from noon to 1 p.m. today during a final fly day at Paine Field, 3407 109th St. SW, Everett.

In what’s being billed as Luftwaffe Day, the collection will feature fly-bys of the Messerschmitt 109 and the Fieseler Fi 156-C2 Storch.

The exhibit’s theme is technology, specifically “how technology changed really quickly during the 1930s and 1940s,” said Adrian Hunt, the Flying Collection’s executive director.

During the event, the collection also will unveil two Flak 37 guns, its newest additions to the museum.

German soldiers used the powerful gun first as an anti-aircraft device and later as an anti-tank weapon, Hunt said. The gun could lob a shell 30,000 feet in the air.

“Particularly, in the early part of the war, it was very important against Allied bombers,” he said.

The Messerschmitt Bf 109, first flown in 1935, was the first modern fighter plane.

The Storch, German for stork, is famous for helping Italian dictator Benito Mussolini escape from his mountaintop prison.

The collection, which opened its doors at Paine Field last year, was previously housed in Arlington.

For more information, call 877-342-3404 or go to www.flyingheritage.com.

Oscar Halpert: 425-339-3429, ohalpert@heraldnet.com.