This is an architectual rendering of what a propsed global airpower museum at Barksdale Air Force Base could look like. / 8th Air Force Museum Association

Written by
John Andrew Prime
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Featured in the August 21 issue of the Shreveport Times

About three dozen local Air Force boosters, including top leadership, elected officials and a handful of national experts, met most of the day Saturday at Shreveport's Petroleum Club to plot strategy.

It wasn't about an airstrike in some far corner of the world or an adventure that could light up CNN or the Drudge Report.

But their goal was to effect a rescue of sorts: planning for fundraising and the future of the 8th Air Force Museum at Barksdale Air Force Base.

The museum, founded more than 30 years ago and caretaker of rare airplanes that include B-24, B-17, B-29, B-52, FB-111 and British Vulcan bombers, faces an uncertain future as a major review looms. Plans are afoot to rebrand it as a global airpower museum, possibly strip it of some of its airplanes and move it to a new site on the bomber base's northern edge.

But the brainstorm session, organized by the new leadership of the 8th Air Force Museum Association, followed "the best defense is a good offense" rationale and focused on boosting community presence and support, thoughts on fundraising and expanding the museum's educational footprint locally and regionally and planning for "down the road" when it could occupy a key site near Interstate 20 more readily accessible to the public and less restrictive than its current site near sensitive operational areas on Barksdale, one of the nation's key bomber bases.

"It's never going to happen if there isn't a 'wow' (factor)," said museum planning and fundraising consultant Andy Bro of the Illinois-based Prentice Co. He was one of the meeting's keynote speakers. "That 'wow' thing has to happen in a major way."

That happened at the skull session when architect Wayne Estopinal showed conceptualizations of what the museum could become if it moves to a site on the north side of the base, near its planned new gate connecting to I-20 and I-220.

The structure, seen as a glassy, spacious and almost aerodynamic structure that could house the threatened airplanes away from weather, could be up to 148,000 square feet in size and hold meeting rooms, dining facilities, classrooms, an auditorium and a theater, as well as space for static and suspended aircraft displays. The estimated cost is $15 million or more, which would have to be raised by the association and partners it could enlist.

"(There has to be) some impact that is rich enough to say, 'This is what our town can do, our community, our state,'" Bro said. "There has to be reach to it. It's not just 'where we park the airplanes.' You need the 'visitor experience.'"

The group also got some pointers from retired Air Force Col. Pat Bartness, the president and chief operating officer of the Museum of Aviation Foundation, which supports the air museum at Robins Air Force Base, Ga. It is considered one of the most successful field museums of the National Museum of the Air Force system. Base leadership on hand included Air Force Global Strike Command head Lt. Gen. Jim Kowalski and 2nd Bomb Wing commander Col. Tim Fay. A sprinkling of retired base officers leavened a group of local civic and business leaders that included, briefly, Shreveport Mayor Cedric Glover and several of his top staffers and state Reps. Jane Smith and Henry Burns.

Retired 8th Air Force commander Bob Elder, a retired three-star general, is the architect of the service's approach to cyber warfare, which led to the creation here of the National Cyber Research Park and the Cyber Innovation Center, whose campus would be just north across I-20 from the planned museum site. He summarized the importance of Barksdale that should be a focus of the revamped museum.

"This (should be) a place you can come to make you think not (just) about air power, but national security," he said.

"You want this to be bigger than just air power and (the) Air Force. There's a history (at Barksdale) that goes back to World War II, that embodies the old Strategic Air Command, the 8th Air Force, 2nd Bomb Wing. That whole piece is huge. ...

"This is one of the few places where you can see in one place, the tactical application of aviation, the operational application of air power and a major command to see how it ties into national security. This museum is an opportunity to tie all of those pieces together, which is not done anywhere else."