SCOTT GULLEDGE / Scroll
John Bagley, founder of Rexburg’s new Legacy Flight Museum, stands on the wing of his 1944 P-63 King Cobra war plane Saturday, March 25.

Rexburg Legacy Flight Museum opens to preserve history of aeronomics

Dave Sheppard SHE04015@BYUI.EDU Scroll Staff

John Bagley opened a non-profit museum Feb. 3 with the desire to share his collection of historical airplanes alongside those of two other collectors, Jim Bastiani and Danny Summers.

“We’re going to have my funeral out here,” Bagley said.

The new Legacy Flight Museum is located at the Rexburg Airport off of 1500 West just past the golf course.

Bagley’s goal is “to help those in the community realize how important these aircrafts are.”

The museum also houses old war jeeps, cars and lots of memorabilia donated by people in the Rexburg area, including pieces of wreckage.

Bagley has had a few accidents in his time flying.

“My father was in a plane crash Aug. 25, 1995,” said Bagley’s daughter Jaclyn Brunson. “His hands got burned due to an engine fire.”

Bagley said there was a loose hydraulic fitting that caused an engine fire.

He turned off the engines, cut the fuel and “put [the plane] into a dive to put out the fire, but had no power to recover properly,” Brunson said.

Artifacts and pictures of the wreckage are just a small number of the items that can be viewed at the museum.

Volunteers and Bagley himself are there to tell the stories associated with each item.

The museum also has a room dedicated to pilot Ronald Jack Layton, a former Area 51 test pilot who flew the controversial SR-71 Blackbird and was the first man to see the sun rise twice in the same day. Layton is often at the museum on Saturdays between 1 and 4 p.m.

Any students interested in learning more about the museum or becoming a volunteer can contact Bagley at 351-0004 or check out the Web site at www.legacyflightmuseum.com.