- Yeah, present day aviation is something you can see (plane rumbling) and hear at the end of this busy Charlotte runway, not too far from the Sullenberger Aviation Museum, where they're also preparing for takeoff, you know, tray tables up, seat backs in their full upright and locked position.

Only the sullenberger takeoff actually feels more like a time machine.

- [Narrator 2] The world's fastest plane, the jet propelled P80 shooting star is revealed by the Army Air Forces.

- [Jeff] These old news reels are from 1945 and 1946.

- [Narrator 2] Now they will go through battle formation tests.

(planes rumbling) - There were a lot of 'em.

The, the P80s are not as common.

(plane rumbling) This was one of the first jet fighters.

- [Jeff] Matthew Hefner, showing us today, this early Navy version of the P80, known as the TV1.

That his crew from Warbirds Restoration has been working on for months here at the Charlotte Airport, inside an historic hangar that's even older than the airplane is.

(plane rumbling) Scraping and taping and sanding near the landing gear.

(tool whirring) Removing decades of baked on paint before polishing this old plane.

(tool whirring) Until you can see your reflection in the now shiny silver sheet metal.

- You gotta get all the paint off, get it sanded down, get all the scuffs and scratches over the years, as much as possible out to try to make it look good again.

Bringing these back to close to original as possible is what we strive for.

(tool whirring) - So the wire wheel helps us get these curved hard to reach areas and then you come behind it with the sander to even it out and it, so what you do.

(tool whirring) - [Jeff] Molly Kenyon is normally a collection specialist with the Sullenberger Aviation Museum, but for now, just hand her the sander and stand back.

- [Molly] Every day is a surprise.

I never thought I'd be doing this, but I find it extremely rewarding and luckily we have a good team of workers here who are helping us get it done.

And I think it's really special that everyone here working on this plane will have a special tie to this aircraft.

(gentle music) - [Jeff] At the other end here of what used to be Charlotte's Aviation Museum pilot Brian Rosenstein already has a special tie to this yellow steerman training plane from World War II that he's working on.

- I own one of these that I fly regularly.

I just flew it yesterday.

I do flight instruction with it and teach people how to fly these airplanes.

(plane rumbling) - [Jeff] What's it like to fly?

- It is pure joy because it's open cockpit.

It kind of connects you with the sensation of flying that you may not get from any other type of airplane.

Building, assembling, disassembling, restoring, fixing these airplanes since I was a teenager.

- [Jeff] Rosenstein says he still puts 200 hours a year on his plane.

Sometimes with those old World War II pilots coming along for the ride.

- I had a guy who learned in a steerman and then went on to fly B17s.

He came to fly with me, he was 96 years old and had not flown an airplane since the war and he asked if he could take the stick and I said absolutely.

He flew my airplane just like he was 20 years old again, it was amazing.

And this is our history and this is a very rich part of our history.

(soft music) - Well, it's a lot of fun to get to see an old airplane, and help to try to preserve it.

- [Jeff] For former Air Force Pilot Gary Lovan, this old airplane is more than just a museum exhibit.

- Well, I was in this particular squadron from 1980 to 1983 and I knew Bud Warfield, his name is on the side of the airplane.

We flew a lot of different missions in this airplane.

Mostly air to ground, air to air combat too.

You know, you're getting old when all the airplanes you ever flew or in a museum too.

(Jeff laughing) (soft music) - These are amazing pieces of technology, but it's the people that worked on those planes.

It's the people that designed those planes.

It's the people that flew those planes that really bring them to life.

- [Jeff] VP of Collections, Katie Swaringen gives us a rare closeup look at the main plane attraction here at the new Sullenberger Museum.

The not so old airplane that everyone wants to see.

The US Airways Miracle on The Hudson plane.

(machine rumbling) Waiting in the wings without its wings for more than a year until the slow move here into this huge new museum hangar on the edge of the airport runway.

(plane rumbling) where it used to fly between Charlotte and New York before flight 1549's Miracle Landing instead in the chilly waters off Manhattan.

- [Radio] It's 1529, we can get it for you.

Do you want to try to land 1913?

- [Pilot] We're unable, we may end up in the Hudson.

- To see it come outta storage and for my team to actually be able to get our hands on it.

You have the wow factor of the plane of course.

- [Jeff] But Swaringen adds that after the wow of Miracle on the Hudson comes the why?

- What makes it a special museum story is really the humanity.

It is those personal stories from the 155 people that were on that aircraft.

But it's also what that story meant to the world.

You have a feel good story where everyone survived.

You can put yourself in their shoes.

(gentle music) - Yeah, like right up in one of those windows is where I was staring out at the engine on the way down.

- [Katie] You can feel what they were feeling.

- That feeling of hope is a wonderful kind of feeling to have.

It's a feeling I felt when we were in the life rafts and seeing the ferry boats coming.

- [Katie] What is their experience 15 years later?

What did this event mean to them?

- Yeah, 2024 is the 15th anniversary of the Miracle on the Hudson.

That once in a lifetime landing by Sully Sullenberger and at the Aviation Museum here in Charlotte named after Sully.

Well, they're getting ready to remember and to celebrate and maybe to inspire that next generation North Carolina Aviation.