When Tim Chopp was six years old, he happened upon a magazine whose pages were filled with pictures and articles on the Douglas C-54. He recalls, "This was 1950 and was probably an article about the Berlin Airlift. With each page I looked at, I fell a little bit more in love with the C-54. It is a love that has only grown with each passing year." As he grew older, Chopp began dreaming about buying a C-54 and using it as a flying classroom, travelling from airport to airport to tell the story of the greatest humanitarian undertaking in the history of aviation. Finally, in 1988, he set about breathing life into his dream by forming the Berlin Airlift Historical Foundation, "using aircraft from the airlift as flying museums/exhibits to educate the public about this pivotal event" Four years later he acquired a C-54, which he named Spirit of Freedom and used exactly as he had envisioned. The BAHF was up and running.
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