ALEXANDRIA — When Doug Garin, a member of the , started looking around for a project the group could work on, he learned of an old plane sitting in an abandoned hangar in Battle Lake.
In an article written by Garin and Paul Clark on the Cessna Owner Organization website in October 2024 – – Garin said he heard about the plane from the occasional transient pilot over the years, but wondered if it truly existed.
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The reason the group wanted to work on a project is because like a lot of other groups, the members are getting older, Garin said.
“We wanted to kind of throw some enthusiasm in it by having a little project to bring some youth into the EAA,” he said.
One day, he decided to find out if there really was a plane in that abandoned Battle Lake hangar. Garin said he jumped in his Beechcraft Sport and flew to Battle Lake to check it out.
“Sure enough, there it was, sitting in the back of this hangar behind a bunch of weeds. And there were barn swallows flying overhead,” he said, adding there were dozens of barn swallow nests in the open rafters, which meant there was a ton of bird droppings everywhere.
The plane was a 1966 Cessna 150. Garin said it was in pretty bad shape. The tires were deflated and it was covered in bird droppings. In fact, the wings had between 2- and 6-inches of bird droppings on them, on the Cessna Owner Organization website.
“It’s just a common 150,” said Garin. “But it was something. I thought, ‘Maybe, we should get this thing back going again.’ It just kind of spoke to me.”
Garin said he flew back to Alexandria and got a group together to go pick up the plane. He said there were about eight guys who went back to Battle Lake to get the plane. But before that, he found out who the plane actually belonged to and made contact with the person.
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“He wanted a bunch of money for it. I told him it was for a good organization and that the organization wanted to donate it back to the EAA,” said Garin. “He came down to a reasonable price and we put a budget together from there and purchased the plane.”
First things were first when they went back to Battle Lake to get the plane. The wings were removed and the plane was cleaned up, meaning all the bird droppings were washed off.
It was then put up a trailer and hauled back to the Alexandria Airport so the members of the EAA could start their work on restoring it.
The group worked on it for about a year – cleaning it, rebuilding the engine, going through all the controls, repainting it, waxing it and whatever else it took to get it flight ready.
Garin said the guys working on it own planes or fly planes and wanted to know how they work. They got to get their hands on that plane inside and out, tip to tail. He said it was a great educational experience and that the group really had a great time working on the plane, restoring it to its original beauty.
In that process, the Cessna 150 ended up with a nickname – the “Dirty Bird,” which is pretty self explanatory on how the name came to be.
When the plane was finally done and signed off on as airworthy, it was Garin who got to take it for its first flight.
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He said he has flown a few planes before that were either new or rebuilt so he remembered what it was like. There is always some nervousness, he said, and that when you get to the end of the runway, you get a little tense.
“You get to the end of the runway and double check, triple check everything and there’s a point where you just have to put the throttle forward and just block everything out,” he said.
Garin said he always has a checklist he goes through and that the last thing he always does is say a prayer – "Angel of God, my guardian dear, to whom God's love commits me here, ever this day be at my side, to light and guard, to rule and guide. Amen."
Some members of the group wanted to have a party or celebration and watch Garin as he took the first flight, but he said he didn’t want any of that.
“If something went wrong, I kind of wanted to be alone,” he said.
But nothing went wrong. Garin said he hadn’t flown a Cessna 150 in about 20 or 30 years and that he was surprised by how light the controls were and how fun it was to fly the little two-passenger light airplane.
Garin said when flying either a new plane or one that has been rebuilt, the experience is almost spiritual.
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“When you are up there flying for the first time, you just can’t explain it,” he said. “You’re looking down at God’s creation and it is amazing. I’m up here flying this thing, fighting all this gravity and forces of wind. It’s incredible and a pretty awesome thing.”
After about 45 minutes up in the air, Garin said it was time to come in and that the landing was just fine, which put a big smile on his face. After that, he started taking people up.
And then, a new flying club was organized – the .
Manager Kreg Anderson said because there was another flying club at the airport they didn’t want to compete with, they decided to go a different route. The Vikingland Club is an equity-based club, which means members buy into a membership or buy into a share of the airplane. The 1966 Cessna 150 is now owned by the members of the .
Members of the club also pay monthly dues and there is also an hourly rate to fly the plane, which is considerably less than if a person were to rent out a plane at a flight school, said Anderson.
“Our goal was to try and keep that hourly cost as low as possible,” he said.
The Vikingland Flying Club is like any other club with a board of directors. For the members, renting the plane is on a first come, first serve basis. Members can take it for an hour or they can take it on a two week vacation to Texas, said Anderson.
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“I don’t think we really have too many rules,” he said, adding that they just want the plane to be used.
Garin said the plane definitely is getting used, which makes him and Anderson happy.
Garin also said he wanted to thank all of the people who were involved to get the “Dirty Bird” up and running.
“It was pretty amazing,” he concluded.
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