Here's the story.
The original owners of what was then called Alamo Airport and is now McCarran International were George and Peg Crockett, who also founded Alamo Airways, one of the city’s first commercial airlines. When the 1993 expansion of the airport to the south necessitated the removal of Peg's home, she opted to donate her extensive collection of early aviation artifacts, which became the foundation for an exhibit jointly managed by the Departments of Aviation and Parks & Recreation.
The exhibit is named for Howard C. Cannon, a WW II pilot who later served as a four-term U.S. senator from Nevada and in 1978 spearheaded a bill that deregulated U.S. airports and opened them to the benefits of a free market. This increased the number of airlines operating out of McCarran from five to 17 in the space of five years.
The airplane and car exhibit you inquired about is located on the second floor above baggage claim and consists of a bright red 1956 Ford Thunderbird and a small plane. A publicity photo on display shows both vehicles with the plane cruising just a few feet off the ground while the car keeps pace (see below).
Back in the airport's early days, a lead truck was used to guide planes around the tarmac while a combination ambulance/fire truck was used as a "crash wagon" in the event of an accident. However, being considerably lighter and faster than the main fire/rescue vehicles, the T-Bird was also a familiar fixture on the tarmac and beat them to the scene of at least a couple of emergencies.
The car on display today is a reproduction of the Alamo Airlines lead/crash wagon created from photographs supplied by Peg Crockett to the Imperial Palace (home of Las Vegas' famous Auto Collection). The original vehicle has changed hands several times since it ceased being in service at the airport and was recently sold again in an online auction.
The airplane, however -- a Cessna 172 -- is the original that was flown by pilots Robert Timm and John Cook in the World Endurance Flight of 1958-'59. The flight took nearly 65 days to complete with the pilots flying in four-hour shifts. They were forced to spend the nights circling near California's Blythe airfield because it was one of the only lighted ones in the area. In order to stay aloft for so long, the pilots had to be able to refuel in the air, a distinctly hazardous-sounding process that involved lowering a rope and hoisting a hose up from a fuel truck. One driver in the vehicle steered, while the other worked the accelerator to match speeds with the airplane.
Additional displays throughout McCarran focus on the history of the valley’s airports, tributes to influential people in aviation history, and information about the Hacienda shuttle flights and the Flexible Gunnery School. Exhibits in the A&B gate corridors include airline-workers’ uniforms and a flight suit that belonged to Howard Hughes. Although only an estimated 1% of the passengers who pass through the airport each day stop to look at the exhibit, that's still enough to make it one of the busiest museums in the state.
For more information about the museum, and to view the photograph referred to, click here.
