Historic Cache at the Aviation Heritage Park
This cache is part of a series of caches hidden at historic locations in Bowling Green. With most of the caches in this series, the location is the cache - the container is hidden as a means to bring you to the location and give you a smiley. The hides are designed to be simple and fun - they are hidden in places that are easy to access, park, and find the cache, while not quite park and grabs they shouldn’t be overly challenging or hard.
The Panther on display was accepted by the Navy on April 25, 1952 and has flown a total of 2,343 hours. Active duty stations include North Carolina, Japan and California. It was last assigned to the Naval Reserve at NAS Minneapolis and decommissioned on February 28, 1958. The aircraft was on public display at Winona, MN for a number of years. In November 2007, the National Naval Aviation Museum gave special permission to restore the aircraft in Blue Angels colors and placed it on loan to Warren County to be an exhibit in Aviation Heritage Park. Bowling Green's newest park opened on October 10, 2018 as a memorial to all distinguished aviators who have called South Central Kentucky home, Aviation Heritage Park currently features five restored military aircraft with very compelling ties to local aviators as well as their own interesting stories. The park is free to the public. I'm fond of planes that are painted "Blue of the might deep, Gold of God's great sun. Let these are colors be till all of days be done..."
The cache is NOT hidden on or in any of the aircraft. Please do not climb on these maticicously preserved and maintained aircraft. The park is open from dawn to dark - daytime only!