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Vintage helicopter finds home at Classic Rotors Rare & Vintage Rotorcraft Museum in Ramona

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Sentinel photo/Maureen Robertson

LONG HAUL

—Buddy Chapman, who specializes in transporting aircraft, rounds the corner of Main Street and Montecito Road, hauling a 90-foot trailer that carries a dismantled H-37 Mojave helicopter for renovation at the Classic Rotors Rare and Vintage Rotorcraft Museum at Ramona Airport.

Getting the craft, reported to be the largest military helicopter built in the United States, off the trailer proved more of a challenge than the eight-hour drive from Marana, Ariz. It took about two hours for a crew of rotorcraft buffs with forklifts and ingenuity, to move the copter to its new home, where Classic Rotors Rare and Vintage Rotorcraft Museum volunteers will restore it.

The Army helicopter, used in the 1950s and during the Vietnam War, had two 2,100-horsepower piston engines and is 88 feet long.

More about the H-37 Mojave and other vintage rotorcraft is at the museum at 2690 Montecito Road. Open to the public, museum hours are Tuesday, Fridays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Sundays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and by appointment. For more information, leave a message at 760-650-9257.

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