Mustang. Corsair. Messerschmitt. WWII fighter planes fly this weekend in Virginia Beach

Keegan Chetwynd walked through the museum hangar doors Monday toward what is perhaps America’s most legendary fighter plane. He looped around the tail, strolling up the portside, stopping underneath the silvery nose of the P-51 Mustang.

“Hey Chris, how’s it going?” he called to the mechanic sitting on a ladder near the open engine.

The mechanic said the Mustang would be more than ready for Saturday. Chetwynd, director and CEO of the Military Aviation Museum in Virginia Beach, expected nothing less.

Over a dozen World War II-era aircraft will soar over crowds Saturday and Sunday at the museum’s Warbirds Over the Beach Air Show.

To see a historic plane at a museum compared with watching one in flight, Chetwynd said, is the same as taxidermy is to a zoo.

“There’s kind of a smell, a sound. It engages every sense to see the airplanes start up, run, take off.”

A British Supermarine Spitfire will fly alongside its former adversary — the German Messerschmitt Bf 109. A Vought F4U Corsair will show how its sleek and curving wings — built to fold and fit inside U.S. Navy aircraft carriers — used to shoot out and soar over the Pacific Ocean. And the museum’s P-51 Mustang — originally flown by the U.S. Army Air Forces — will roar its Rolls-Royce Merlin engine.

“The Mustang, to my mind, is the iconic American fighter of the war, but we’re in a Navy town,” Chetwynd said, starting to grin. “So everyone who loves the Corsair can come here and fight me.”

(He cracked up at his own joke.)

His passion for aviation and museums was stoked at an early age by books depicting fighter planes and a family road trip with stops at museums in several states. This year, Chetwynd was named a “Warbirds 20 Under 40 Rising Star” by the National Warbird Operator Conference.

Now 35, Chetwynd took over as the museum’s CEO five years ago, navigated through stalls caused by the pandemic and successfully haggled for acquisitions of rare vintage aircraft that are ever harder to find.

He identified and fundraised for the museum’s recent purchase of a Boeing-Stearman biplane that President George H. W. Bush trained in before deploying as a torpedo bomber pilot in World War II, according to Dr. Edward George, chairman of the museum’s board of directors.

Most recently, Chetwynd helped acquire one of the last airworthy Japanese Zero fighter planes in the U.S. It will be transported to the museum after completing a final stage of restoration in Washington.

“Over the years, Keegan has proven that he is a clear thinker, that he is a great strategian, that he’s a practical tactical manager and that he has great ideas for the future,” George said.

The median price of a WW II airplane is about $3 million to $4 million and because their value appreciates quickly, buyers will often view them as investments — too valuable to fly.

Many buyers, Chetwynd said, will lock their planes in barns.

“And that’s a huge part of what the museum provides people: An opportunity to understand these things as monuments to that Greatest Generation and not just as collectibles or things like that.”

Colin Warren-Hicks, 919-818-8138, colin.warrenhicks@virginiamedia.com

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If you go

When: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Oct. 5 and Oct. 6

Where: Military Aviation Museum, 1341 Princess Anne Road Virginia Beach

Tickets: Free for children younger than 4; single-day tickets for children between 5 and 13 start at $35, adult tickets start at $65

Hurricane Helene relief: The museum will host a supply drive on Saturday and Sunday. Supplies dropped off at the main entrance will be loaded into Douglas C-47 Skytrain aircraft and flown to affected areas in North Carolina.

Details: militaryaviationmuseum.org