Miranda Pederson/Daily NewsRetired Air Force Gen. Dan Cherry walks past the F4-D Phantom II fighter jet Thursday at the Bowling Green-Warren County Airport that he flew in Vietnam when he shot down a MiG-21 of the North Vietnamese Air Force in 1972.

A Vietnam War-era fighter plane, flown in combat by Bowling Green resident Dan Cherry, arrived in pieces Thursday at the Bowling Green-Warren County Regional Airport.

The plane known as Phantom 550 – its original tail number – is planned to be the centerpiece of a local Aviation Heritage Park once it’s reassembled and restored.

On April 16, 1972, Cherry shot down a Soviet-built MiG-21 fighter over North Vietnam while flying the F4-D Phantom II.

For the park’s dedication ceremony, planned for fall 2006, its backers are hoping to extend an unusual invitation, said Carroll Hildreth, chairman of Aviation Heritage Park Inc.

&#8220We know that the North Vietnamese pilot survived that shoot-down,” he said.

They are now working to identify and contact him, with the idea of having him come to witness the honoring of the plane and pilot that shot him down, according to Hildreth.

Cherry volunteered for two combat tours in Southeast Asia, flying 295 missions, most of them over North Vietnam. He was later commander of the Thunderbirds, the Air Force precision-flying team, and retired as a brigadier general before his career in Kentucky state government and as president of the Inter-Modal Transportation Authority in Bowling Green.

Thursday, he stood with Hildreth and Ben Nattrass, owner of Bellevue, Neb.-based Worldwide Aircraft Recovery Ltd., which moved the plane from Ohio.

The aviation park is planned for the grassy area across the parking lot from the airport terminal. Speaking from the terminal lobby, Cherry outlined the events that led up to the plane’s arrival.

For about 15 years, he and a group of friends have walked and breakfasted together every morning. In August 2004, they took a joint trip to the U.S. Air Force museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base outside Dayton, Ohio.

There they met the museum director, retired Maj. Gen. Charles Metcalf, who told them that Cherry’s old plane was nearby and might be available for relocation, Cherry said.

So they made a side trip to a Veterans of Foreign Wars hall in Enon, Ohio, and posed for a group shot in front of the plane, a picture on display at Thursday’s press conference.

&#8220Really, this was the beginning of the Aviation Heritage Park, right there,” Cherry said.

The VFW chapter was shrinking, and could no longer maintain the plane, he said.

&#8220Very quickly, it became a bigger idea than just preserving 550,” Cherry said. &#8220The idea is that we’re going to be honoring people from southcentral Kentucky who have made significant contributions in the field of aviation, and 550 will only be the start of that.”

Eventually, backers are hoping to get six to eight aircraft associated with local aviation history, though they have no other specific ones in mind, Aviation Heritage Park board member Alvin Ford said.

&#8220That’s over many years,” he said.

The group’s research found that aviation pioneers who lived in Bowling Green include Victor Strahm, a World War I ace who shot down five German planes in 1918 and retired as a brigadier general; Larue Coy, pioneer aviation instructor; and Ken Fleenor, who was shot down northwest of Hanoi on Dec. 17, 1967, and released March 14, 1973.

When the park is built, the woods now separating the airport from Scottsville Road will be cleared so the planes on display will be visible, Ford said.

Phantom 550’s fuselage and wings are now separated and on different trucks, and Worldwide Aircraft Recovery will begin reassembling the plane today, when those are unloaded, said Airport Manager Rob Barnett.

&#8220Weather permitting, we’ll start the restoration process,” he said.

It will take three or four days to reassemble, said Marty Batura of Worldwide Aircraft Recovery.

After that, it must be prepared for repainting. The plane is now painted gray, as when it last flew with an Air Force Reserve unit in Ohio in about 1990, Cherry said. The group plans to restore its Vietnam-era camouflage color scheme.

For that, they’re seeking volunteers, Hildreth said.

He said earlier this year that it would cost $28,500 to get the plane to Bowling Green, then another $75,000 to $100,000 to build the park. He reminded the crowd that gifts to Aviation Heritage Park are tax-deductible, since the group is a registered nonprofit.

So far, about $37,000 has come in for the project, Ford said.

&#8220We’ve probably got about a third raised of what we need,” he said.

In September, Bowling Green and Warren County governments approved a $10,000 appropriation from the Bowling Green Area Convention and Visitors Bureau for the park, despite earlier statements by the project’s backers that they would rely entirely on private funding.

– For more information about the park, go to http://www.aviationheritagepark.com .