As reported on the museum’s website the Hagerstown Aviation Museum is in the process of preparing it’s Fairchild C-123 Provider N681DG to fly home to Hagerstown, Maryland. This Vietnam War era veteran was manufactured in 1956 at the Fairchild Aircraft Company in Hagerstown. The US Air Force used the C-123 to transport troops and supplies in and out of some of the most diffcult and dangerous airfields during the Vietnam War. Of the over 300 C-123’s built only a handful still fly today. Acquired by the museum a year ago, this C-123 will join the museum’s collection of twenty historic aircraft, most of which were built in Hagerstown.
The Provider was a short-range assault transport used for airlifting troops and cargo to and from small, unprepared airstrips. The rugged C-123 became an essential part of U.S. Air Force airlift during the Southeast Asia War, where it flew primarily as an in-theater airlifter and a Ranch Hand sprayer ( Source USAF Factshet).Out of the 300 plus C-123’s that were built in Hagerstown, there are only a handful that are still flying, and this is one of them.
John Seburn, president of Aviation Museum President John, discovered this particular C-123 plane’s existence on the internet.”About a year ago we found it advertised on the U.S. Treasury Department website, offering a seized aircraft for sale. The museum made an offer, we ended up getting the airplane and now we’re ready to bring it back home to Hagerstown,” Seburn said.
“The mission of the aviation museum is to preserve Hagerstown aviation heritage,” Seburn said. “Over the past ten years we have acquired over 20 aircrafts, most of which were built here in Hagerstown. The C-123 was one of the last big planes that we didn’t have in the collection.”
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