Gate Guardians at Aviator's Memorial Park, Grand Junction Regional Airport, Colorado

I've been through Grand Junction on a lot of business and have always found these aircraft (and the memorial) to be very interesting!

Two years after I posted this video alneal100 wrote with a description of each plane and its engine:

"The Douglas A-4 Skyhawk is the dark blue and yellow single engine aircraft. The grey twin engine aircraft is the Grumman A-6 Intruder. The A-6 had Pratt and Whitney JP8-D engines, the same as the old DC-9, Boeing 727,707, and 737 (early models)"

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A couple months after posting this video Dwain Watson wrote me to say, "I Saw your video of the Grand Junction airport Gate Guardians on you tube. I also see from your website that you are interested in politics. The video you took of the F11 Grumman Tiger and A-6 Grumman Intruder was taken during a major facelift of the airport utilizing FAA grant monies and Obama stimulus grants. "

"I like looking at Gate Guardians as well and am certainly proud of ours, but maybe a little less proud. Those gate guardians had just been painted and placed back on the poles before your video. Airport management paid $55,000 of your tax money to paint not both, but just the Blue Angel. The A-6 cost $67,000 also of your tax money. To put that in perspective a small general aviation plane top of the line paint job might cost $10,000. Those airplanes dont fly. I think that the paint jobs for those airplanes could have cost less."

"Next time you talk to a politician and they spout off about how efficiently they spend our money, throw this one on the table."

I'd have to agree with Dwain - government officials usually don't have the taxpayers' best interests in mind when spending our money!

Here's my personal web page about Colorado:
http://www.rogerwendell.com/colorado.html

Here's my page about travel, in general:
http://www.rogerwendell.com/travel.html

10-02-2009

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• aviators
• memorial
• park
• grand
• junction
• regional
• airport
• colorado
• gate
• guardians
• f11
• grumman
• tiger
• a-6
• intruder

[alneal100]

The Douglas A-4 Skyhawk is the dark blue and yellow single engine aircraft. The grey twin engine aircraft is the Grumman A-6 Intruder. The A-6 had Pratt and Whitney JP8-D engines, the same as the old DC-9, Boeing 727,707, and 737 (early models)

[zeekzilch]

@alneal100

Thanks for the great info! I've added it to the video's description with attribution to you. Good stuff!

[alneal100]

The A-4 Skyhawk had been there for many years, The Grumman A-6 is more recent.

[zeekzilch]

@alneal100

Which one is which and I'll add your info to the description. Thanks!

[usmail77]

Very cool!

[zeekzilch]

@usmail77

I agree!

[zeekzilch]

@650kntflyby

Okay, I hope to see Cleveland someday soon!