Model planes share airspace in BIA office

BANGOR – A four-engine passenger jet soared just inches over Gary Robichaud’s head on Thursday at Bangor International Airport. The longtime dispatcher didn’t mind, though, because the blue and white DC-8-63 weighed only a few ounces and was hung from the ceiling with fishing line.

The airplane is one of 70 models suspended in the air inside the airport’s dispatch center, part of a collection started about 20 years ago by the late Rick Aiken, a 26-year airport employee. A hobbyist, Aiken made the first dozen models himself, often during slow nights in the dispatch center.

Miniaturized versions of the roaring planes that take off and land just outside the center’s expansive window, the models add character to the otherwise functional room.

The planes hanging along the window are among the oldest, and many represent airlines that have since gone out of business, said Robichaud, a 33-year BIA employee who knows the collection’s history well.

“We refer to it as the Chapter 11 Row,” Robichaud said. “They’re no longer with us.”

The DC-8-63 was flown by ONA, formerly Overseas National Airways, which ceased its worldwide charter operations in 1983. A solid mahogany Pan Am 747 hanging nearby is one of only a few wooden models in the collection, Robichaud said, pointing to the replica with its familiar blue globe logo.

Robichaud broke briefly from his description, stopping to listen to a pilot rattling off a series of coded information and an estimated arrival time.

Pressing a button, Robichaud answered back, “Omni 800, all copied, and you have a good flight, sir.”

Only one of the replicas, he said, resuming his train of thought, represents a plane that never stopped at BIA. A Monarch Airlines model that hangs along the back wall was one of many that flight attendants distributed in 1990 to young passengers, Robichaud said. The kids would assemble the Lego-style models to stay busy during the flight.

But it was the older models that originally attracted the attention of pilots passing through BIA, who often stopped by the third-floor dispatch center for flight plans and weather briefings, Robichaud said.

The pilots would see the collection and remark, “You don’t have one of ours up there,” he said. “They’d bring one with them the next time through.”

So began the expansion of the fleet of brightly colored models that now nearly covers the ceiling. The latest addition was a JetBlue 757 that was brought in a year ago, Robichaud said.

Still more are to come, especially if certain pilots manage to keep their word, he said.

“We still have a lot of promises that have not been delivered on,” Robichaud said, chuckling.

Some pilots have asked to take a model home with them, but the dispatchers have yet to give one up, he said.

The collection also attracted the attention of movie producers for Stephen King’s 1995 TV miniseries, “The Langoliers,” parts of which were filmed at BIA. All of the models were moved to the second-floor coffee shop and hung as background decoration, Robichaud said.

Some of the replicas’ landing gears were broken off in the process, but most were returned to dispatch in good condition, he said.

A yellow and red DHL model was struck one day when a tall person waved and knocked it down, but in general the models remain undisturbed, Robichaud said, as a few of them swayed slightly above his head.

He pointed out a gold and green replica of a “Forbes Capitalist Tool” Boeing 727 that used to pick up Caspar Weinberger at BIA, he said. The former U.S. secretary of defense, who went on to work for Forbes after his time at the Pentagon, has a home on Mount Desert Island.

A British Airways 328 jet model was brought in by a member of the crew who originally tested the plane, and an Eastern Airlines Boeing 757 replica was added by a chief pilot who saw the model collection, Robichaud said.

Models with updated paint jobs have replaced some of the older planes, and only one corner of the ceiling remains empty of the delicate replicas.

What will the dispatchers do if they run out of room?

“We’ll have to expand the office,” Robichaud said with a smile.