Dozens of WNC air museum's planes were damaged during Helene

HENDERSONVILLE — Jarrod Jarvis, president of the Western North Carolina Air Museum, walked through a hangar where brightly colored antique airplanes sat on the ground and hung from the walls and rafters.

"There was fish in here," he said Dec. 23, describing what it was like after Tropical Storm Helene tore through Western North Carolina Sept. 27. "There was a beaver on top of the airplane because that was the only little dry Island."

He touched the wing of a Fleet Model 1 biplane from 1930.

"Most all of these airplanes are fabric and wood, so once water gets even into the tail section of the plane, it's sort of hard to recover from that, and it's very expensive if we were to strip the airplane apart," Jarvis said.

The museum was founded in 1989 by a group of friends who were aviation fanatics. They gathered classic planes and flying memorabilia, initially displaying their collection in space at the Hendersonville Airport, a private property with a paved airstrip. In 1993, members managed to acquire land next door to the airport, built a hangar to house the museum, and created an airfield with a grass strip where planes could take off and land.

They operated the museum as a free attraction that's staffed by volunteers and open three days a week. To generate revenue, they built additional hangars and began leasing space for pilots to park their aircraft. Over time, the museum became a more active general aviation facility than the neighboring airport, Jarvis explained. The hangars were fully leased and there was a waiting list.

To the rescue

When Helene hit, rain flooded the airstrip, near where King Creek and Bat Fork Creek meet, essentially creating a 10-foot-deep lake.

The main hangar was filled with water, damaging classic planes and ruining almost everything that belonged to the museum, from paperwork to computers to air compressors. Several other hangars housing museum members' small planes were completely submerged.

Immediately after the storm, people in Jarvis' network were both offering donations and asking for help. The aviation community came together and used the air museum as a base from which they could fly helicopters to deliver supplies like water, generators fuel and medicine to stranded communities all over WNC and Tennessee.

"First call I got was Henderson County Emergency Services," Jarvis recalled. "There was a community that was trapped and shut off in the Green River area. That was our first flight."

As days went on, more helicopter companies offered help. As water receded from the hangar, volunteers set up an operation to distribute supplies.

"All day long, we had flights coming in," Jarvis said. "I slept here in the hangar. We were running 5 a.m. to 1 a.m. for the first three weeks or so."

In need of help

Now that the initial chaos has subsided, the museum is assessing its own needs. About 35 or 40 planes got completely destroyed.

"A salvage crew spent weeks cutting them up and hauling them off," Jarvis said.

The majority of losses were not covered by insurance. Though the museum has about 300 members on paper, only about nine are active, Jarvis said. Many are elderly.

"General aviation is kind of a dying thing," Jarvis said, which makes the air museum special. "Asheville airport's not really supportive of general aviation, so to speak, they're more on the commercial side, and it's a bit cost prohibitive for people with planes like these. That's where we come in."

The museum's operating budget is about $100,000 per year, Jarvis said. It's funded by small donations, occasional sales of aircraft parts, and one fundraiser per year, during which pilots take people on rides. But with damaged hangars and no tenants, it has lost the ability to generate funds to recover.

Jarvis said the museum needs about $250,000 to get through the next year, to do critical remedial work to the property and pay for necessities such as electricity, insurance and the property mortgage. A GoFundMe has raised $11,970 as of Dec. 23. Jarvis is hoping to organize a concert fundraiser in the coming months.

Because the museum doesn't have much budget to advertise, few people in the area are familiar with it, Jarvis said. He's from Kitty Hawk and didn't even realize it existed until living in Hendersonville for years. He hopes people will come to see it as an important local asset that can help in future emergencies.

"We were there for the community when it needed us," Jarvis said. Now, he hopes, the community will show up for the museum in return. Anyone interested in helping can volunteer, become a member or make a donation, he said.

More: Henderson County Helene debris cleanup: How much has been picked up, what to know

More: In Chimney Rock, business owners vow to rebuild after Helene

Deirdra Funcheon is a reporter coving Henderson, Polk and Transylvania Counties for the Hendersonville Times-News, part of the USA TODAY Network. Tips, comments, questions? Email [email protected].

This article originally appeared on Hendersonville Times-News: Western North Carolina Air Museum needs funds, volunteers after Helene