Hickory Aviation Museum

Hickory Aviation Museum The Hickory Aviation Museum is located at the Hickory Regional Airport in Hickory, NC.
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Hickory Aviation Museum---Free Admission
Mailing Address: 3101 9th Avenue NW Box 22A, Hickory NC 28601

The team at Hickory Aviation Museum wishes everyone a safe Memorial Day Weekend as we remember our fallen service men an...
05/24/2026

The team at Hickory Aviation Museum wishes everyone a safe Memorial Day Weekend as we remember our fallen service men and women and their sacrifice while in service to our great military and Country.

When visitors are checking out our AV-8B Harrier II+ jet, on the wall next to it is a framed and matted selection of photos/patches of USMC Captain Peter "Gator" Yount doing ski jump testing while at Navy Test Pilot School in 1988.

Captain Yount would have an illustrious career and was selected for Command and in 1998, just a short time before taking over a squadron at MCAS Yuma, AZ, now LtCol Yount was on a routine flight when his Harrier suffered a complete systems failure, and he was unable to restart the jet. The only option was ejection, but unfortunately due to a seat malfunction, my step-brother lost his life that day. He is missed every day....

On two of our other jets, we honor the fallen: CDR Scotty Greiling on our A-7A Corsair II, lost over the skies of Vietnam in 1968. CDR Dick Oliver was lost in 1966 and LCDR Stuart Powrie in 1982 during airshow practices with the Blue Angels and they are on our BA-5, our F/A-18A Hornet. Always remembered.

Today in MilAvHist, 5/24/1978, McDonnell Douglas delivered it's 5,000th F-4 Phantom II, F-4E-65-MC 77-0290 to the USAF. ...
05/24/2026

Today in MilAvHist, 5/24/1978, McDonnell Douglas delivered it's 5,000th F-4 Phantom II, F-4E-65-MC 77-0290 to the USAF. This aircraft would eventually find its way to the Turkish Air Force. There would be 5,195 total jets manufactured and HAM is happy to finally move BuNo 148400 into the new building after years of being exposed to the elements.

On the jetphotos.com website, the latest photos posted of 77-0290 was from just 2 months ago, still flying strong. (Boeing photo with James McDonnell).

Today in MilAvHist, 5/23/1919, 1LT Elmer Stone (USCG) and Walter Hinton along with mission commander and navigator LCDR...
05/23/2026

Today in MilAvHist, 5/23/1919, 1LT Elmer Stone (USCG) and Walter Hinton along with mission commander and navigator LCDR Albert Read (USN) completed the first transatlantic flight in a Curtiss NC4 Flying Boat. It took them 19 days with various stops to fly from NY to Portugal.

Elmer Stone enlisted in the Coast Guard in 1910 and in 1915 suggested the use of aircraft for Coast Guard duties. He completed pilot training in Pensacola and was designed Coast Guard Aviator number 1 as well as Naval Aviator number 38.

He spent six years with the Naval Bureau of Aeronautics and assisted in the development of catapults and arresting gear for the USS Lexington and USS Saratoga. Several more aviation commands followed until his untimely death in 1936 from a heart attack while on duty in San Diego, and he is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Couple of Harriers passing over HKY yesterday, photos by Scott Eckert. In two weeks, the USMC will hold the Sunset Cere...
05/22/2026

Couple of Harriers passing over HKY yesterday, photos by Scott Eckert.

In two weeks, the USMC will hold the Sunset Ceremony at MCAS Cherry Point to farewell the Harrier jet. It will be missed!

5/22/1912 is recognized as the Birthday of United States Marine Corps Aviation!!!! 1st Lt Alfred Cunningham reported to...
05/22/2026

5/22/1912 is recognized as the Birthday of United States Marine Corps Aviation!!!! 1st Lt Alfred Cunningham reported to the aviation camp that had been set up at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis Maryland on this date.

Actual flight training was given at the Burgess Plant at Marblehead, Massachusetts, because only the builders of planes could fly in those days. Burgess was the first licensed builder of aircraft in the US. After a whopping two hours and forty minutes of instruction, Cunningham soloed on 20 August 1912. He flew the Curtiss seaplane and became Naval Aviator No. 5.

He flew for the next 2 years, logging some 400 flights in a Curtiss B-1, but his flying career came to an abrupt (temporary) end, when in August 1913, he sought detachment from flying duty when his life hit a roadblock: The future Mrs. Cunningham refused to marry him unless he stopped flying!

He accepted numerous billets in aviation, though, and Mrs Cunningham finally came to see the light and he went flying again. He had a wonderful career advancing Marine Corps aviation, and one of his feats was flying the first catapulted aircraft from the USS NORTH CAROLINA, while underway.

If you're ever in New Bern NC crossing the Neuse River, you'll do so on the Alfred Cunningham Bridge.

Thanks to Billy Chapman of the Hickory Daily Record for this great article on the grand opening and supplying us with a ...
05/21/2026

Thanks to Billy Chapman of the Hickory Daily Record for this great article on the grand opening and supplying us with a copy to share with our followers!

Here is the Memorial Day Weekend schedule for the Museum.
05/20/2026

Here is the Memorial Day Weekend schedule for the Museum.

Batch #3.
05/20/2026

Batch #3.

Second batch.
05/20/2026

Second batch.

I'm going to be lazy today and dump my iPhone photos from the Grand Opening Weekend, no order, no editing, maybe not man...
05/20/2026

I'm going to be lazy today and dump my iPhone photos from the Grand Opening Weekend, no order, no editing, maybe not many descriptions, probably some duplicates. My favorite photographer who volunteers at the museum and goes by "The Aviator Images" and does everything we ask of him, is currently editing his billions of photos and when they're ready, we will share them.

05/19/2026

Today in MilAvHist, 5/19/2018, the grand opening ceremony for the Lockheed P-3C Orion BuNo 156515!

Our aircraft flew from 1969 until retirement in 2017, when it was flown into Hickory Regional Airport in September. We moved the aircraft to our former display area in January 2018 and over the next few months, hundreds of volunteer hours went into cleaning and scrubbing the interior and exterior, building shields to protect the work stations and ensuring that what would be presented to our visitors was true to the aircraft and the Maritime Patrol Aviation community.

This weekend, the aircraft enjoyed another grand opening and an estimated 1,100+ visitors toured the aircraft during the museum grand opening on Saturday! We are fortunate to have several former aircrew volunteer with the museum to provide accurate tours and to train our other volunteers who are new to the plane and the community.

This Orion is one of three aircraft available to tour in the US with another one in Michigan and one in California. It is the only plane in the world now indoors on display completely intact with no surfaces removed as the building access was built to accommodate the plane for us to roll it in/out as we move aircraft around and host large events.

Attached is a quick walk around video and interior view of the Orion.

Address

821 21st Street NW
Hickory, NC
28601

Opening Hours

Tuesday 10am - 4pm
Wednesday 10am - 4pm
Thursday 10am - 4pm
Friday 10am - 4pm
Saturday 10am - 5pm
Sunday 1pm - 5pm

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