EVERETT — In 1945, shortly after the end of World War II in Europe, an officer took a P-51B Mustang fighter out for a training flight in England.
He was flying low and fast. The fighter faltered, the pilot bailed out and the plane crashed into a beet field.
The wreckage wasn’t excavated until 2002. Not much was left, but there was enough to rebuild the plane around.
Now it’s at Paine Field.
The P-51B, nicknamed the Impatient Virgin during the war, is one of about 60 aircraft planned to be on display today and Sunday at the second annual Vintage Aircraft Weekend at Paine Field.
Five organizations with vintage flying machines plan to have many of their planes out for flights and viewing on the ground.
The Impatient Virgin is expected to be a permanent resident of the airport. It belongs to the Historic Flight Foundation, which has built a new museum on the west side of Paine Field near the Mukilteo Speedway. The Impatient Virgin is one of 13 planes in the collection, owned by John Sessions of Seattle, and one of four on display over the weekend.
Sessions plans to open the museum early next year.
Paine Field already is home to two restoration operations and Paul Allen’s Flying Heritage Collection museum, which features World War II military planes. Seattle’s Museum of Flight and the Legend Flyers do their restoration work at Paine Field, the latter focusing on German Messerschmitt 262s.
Sessions, who describes himself as a residential developer and “serial entrepreneur,” has flown for many years and began collecting the planes in 2003, he said. He’s spent an average of $2.5 million having each of the planes restored. In 2005, he established the foundation as a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization.
In 2006, Sessions approached Snohomish County officials, who run Paine Field, about establishing a museum at the airport.
“They have great facilities and a great aviation culture,” Sessions said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a 777 or a Piper Cub, everyone seems to work together.”
He asked airport officials why nothing had been built on the west side of Paine Field and was told it was because utilities had not been extended there. So Sessions and the county came to an agreement: He would build the museum and pay for utility hookups, and the county would deduct the utility construction cost from his rent.
The Historic Flight Foundation will receive $8,200 per month in rent credits until it adds up to $862,000, about 8 1/2 years, airport deputy director Bill Dolan said. The foundation has a 40-year lease with an option for another 10 years.
Included in the utility cost was part of a road leading from Chennault Beach Road and the Mukilteo Speedway to the museum and beyond. The county put up $900,000 toward the cost of the road, which is slated to eventually curve up the west side of the airport when more development takes place. Castle &Cooke Aviation, which supplies support services to corporate jets, plans to eventually move there from its current home on the east side of the airport, Dolan said.
The Historic Flight Foundation plans to display its aircraft in its current building when the museum opens next year. Eventually, Sessions plans to build a 52,000-square-foot building curved like a Quonset hangar to display the planes.
Among his three other aircraft on display this weekend is Bad Kitty, a Grumman F7F-3 Tigercat twin-engine fighter used on a limited basis toward the end of World War II, and later for fighting forest fires. Bad Kitty is one of only six Tigercats left in the world and one of the three that fly, Sessions said.
There’s also a Waco UPF-7, a biplane built to train pilots for World War II and the Korean War, and a Beaver deHavilland L-20A, an Air Force utility plane used in Korea and Vietnam. Sessions also has a vintage DC-3 airliner and a World War II-era B25D Mitchell bomber in his collection.
The completion of the museum will make Paine Field even more of a destination for vintage aircraft buffs, said Dolan, the airport’s deputy director.
“Not an insignificant number of people” already make the rounds of the Flying Heritage Collection, the restoration operations and the Future of Flight Museum, he said.
“Once we have John Sessions’ facility up and running, that’ll be one more stop on the tour for them,” Dolan said.
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