Project taking place in Augusta
This November will mark 50 years since the assassination of
President John F. Kennedy in Texas
By Jeremy Costello
Augusta Gazette
Augusta Gazette
Updated May. 10, 2013 @ 9:19
pm
This November will mark 50 years since the assassination of
President John F. Kennedy in Texas
The Nu-Tek Simulations division of Nu-Tek Aircraft
Instruments Inc. of Augusta, has begun conducting the restoration and configuration of
a replica plane the company will present in the first-ever JFK Air Force One
Exhibit at Love Field, Dallas in November.
Inside the plane, the president's quarters, crew officers'
work stations and the state room where Johnson was sworn in as president
already have desks and chairs to help form outlines, and there is a
communication station just outside the cockpit door. But much is still in the
works. Steve Cannaby of Nu-Tek Simulation is the project director who leads the
10 or so workers, including some Boeing IDS
volunteers, during the construction phase. Cannaby and his crew have plenty of
experience with planes.
"We've done other Air Force One projects before. We did
one for the Ronald Reagan Library, and we did one for the 2008 DNC,"
Cannaby said.
The replica plane originally had a Nixon configuration after
being used in the 1995 Oliver Stone film "Nixon" before getting sold
to current owner Jim Warlick.
Reconfiguring the replica to match JFK's plane has had its
challenges.
"It's a daunting task," Cannaby said. "The
airplane is old, 707 parts are extremely hard to come by [as is] all of the
Kennedy information, because they only flew it for less than a year....The
photography and the images and data we have is limited."
Nu-Tek representative Daron Clinesmith brings a unique
perspective to help contribute to the replica's design. Clinesmith once served
as a crew member aboard Air Force One during the 1980s and knows what it was
like to fly with the president firsthand. If nothing else, Clinesmith wants to
help give people a taste of real history.
"It's really neat on the history side. It's pretty
significant," Clinesmith said of the JFK project. "We're doing it
respectfully...It's kind of neat to see this come together and be a part of
that remembrance of that day. It's a sad day, but it's also one of the
significant points of time in history."
After its inaugural display in Texas
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