EVANSVILLE, Ind (WEHT) She got a new name, and now a new look – Evansville’s P-47, the Hoosier Spirit II, now looks the part as Indiana’s Official State Aircraft.
The Hoosier Spirit Two arrived at the Evansville Wartime Museum back in October. At the time, the plane was known as ‘Tarheel Hal.’ It was one of nearly 6,300 P-47’s built at the Republic Aviation Plant in Evansville during World War II.
“They made fifteen thousand of these planes during World War II, and 6,242 of them were made locally in Evansville Indiana, which is pretty special. Not only did we make the planes we made 167 LSTs and billions and billions of bullets,” museum’s events committee chair, Dona Bone, said.
Bone said they want this plane to continue standing to serve the Evansville community and they want to attract others to the area with it.
“We took out a loan to pay for the plane and we’re about sixty percent of the way there but we still have a long way to go so we can actually keep it here in the community,” Bone said.
Donations and more information can be found here.
