By Associated Press
Detroit, MI – Plans are under way for a Tuskegee Airmen museum at Detroit's Coleman A. Young International Airport.
A renovated hangar at the Detroit airport will house the new, national museum, said museum fundraising coordinator. Retired U-S Air Force Major General Lucius Theus said once completed, it will feature memorabilia and full-scale models of fighter planes and bombers flown by the legendary World War II pilots.
Theus said the estimated cost of the project is about 26 (m) million dollars with actual work and completion still several years away. He said funds will be raised through a national campaign, Tuskegee Airmen events and public and private donations.
Trained in Tuskegee, the Airmen flew in tens of thousands of combat missions. Former Detroit Mayor Coleman Young was a member.
The group is in discussions with a California company to build models of the P-51 Mustang, B-25 bomber and other aircraft flown by the Airmen.
Theus, now 85, of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, entered the Army Air Corps as a private and is only one of a handful of the original Airmen to become generals.
The surviving members of the Airmen received the Congressional Gold Medal last month from President Bush in Washington
(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)