BLOOMINGTON - The 1942 DC-3 airplane that has been a mainstay at the Prairie Aviation Museum for 25 years has been sold to a Florida aircraft restoration company. | Photo gallery | Video | Open Cockpit Day | DC-3 facts

It left for its southward journey Thursday morning.

"It was for financial reasons," said Frank Thompson, president of the museum's board of directors. "Prairie Aviation Museum could not continue to keep the airplane flying. It's meant to fly. The more you let it sit, the more problems."

Thompson said the museum did not have a permanent hangar so the plane had to sit outside, braving the elements - and the birds that routinely built nests in the engine.

The sale was a bittersweet moment for board members and one of the former volunteer pilots.

"I'm definitely sorry to see it go," said Bill Thacker, a former volunteer pilot for the museum. "It's a bittersweet ending to a two-year saga."

Thacker logged about 100 hours flying the plane to air shows. The money made from offering rides at the shows helped pay the cost of operation, he said.

"I now fly jets for a living but it (the DC-3) was a lot more fun to fly," he said.

Thacker credited Loren Winkelman and his crew from Loravco Aviation for taking the aircraft from the condition it was in when the museum purchased it in 1984 to the Federal Aviation Administration certification level that allowed it to carry passengers.

Museum board member Tom Kuhn remembers what the purchase meant for the museum.

"It was our very first airplane," he said. "When the museum started, one of our goals was to get a DC-3 and restore it best as we could."

Kuhn said the members searched 1½ years before finding the plane, which was part of an estate sale of an "eccentric oil millionaire" in Texas.

Besides the $28,000 purchase price, the museum had to pay about $32,000 to make it flyable, Kuhn said. The plane had not been flown for 15 years.

"It's been an integral part of this museum for so long," he said. "It is a piece of history."

Thacker said the DC-3 is responsible for today's air transportation.

It was the first mass-produced airplane for the airline industry, he said. It had enough seats to keep the price of flying affordable for passengers and could make long distances.

"You gotta do what you've gotta do," Thompson said of the decision to sell the plane.

On the positive side, he said the new owners, Antique Aircraft Restoration of Marathon, Fla., plan to keep the plane's Ozark Airline colors and plan to continue flying it.

In 2007, the museum sought Heartland Community College's assistance in retiring about $1 million in debt for the Challenger Learning Center, which it opened four years earlier. The college agreed to oversee the center's operation, but the debt remains the museum's responsibility.

The center will move to the college campus next year.

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GO!

What: Open Cockpit Day

Where: Prairie Aviation Museum, 2929 E. Empire St., Bloomington

When: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. May 2

Cost: For a $5 admission fee, participants will be able to sit in the cockpit of six of the museum's remaining eight aircraft.

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About the plane

Facts about the former Prairie Aviation Museum Douglas DC-3:

• One of 219 military planes built by Douglas Aircraft in 1942 and used by the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps during World War II.

• Decommissioned in 1946 and purchased by Continental Airlines.

• Bought by Southern Airways in 1949.

• Sold to a Texas oilman in 1966.

• Purchased by Prairie Aviation Museum in 1983 and restored to flying condition.

• Named to the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.