Historic plane to be removed from inside Calgary office building

A 78-year-old Noorduynn C-64 Norseman bush plane will be moving out of the Suncor Energy Centre over the next few days as the building is set to be redeveloped in the fall.

A Canadian-made bush plane that's long been a part of the atrium of a Calgary office building will soon have a new place to live.

A Noorduynn C-64 Norseman aircraft, which has hung inside the Suncor Energy Centre for the past 40 years, is being removed so it can be set up at the Hangar Flight Museum in northeast Calgary.

Brookfield Properties is donating the plane, which is 78 years old and one of only 49 remaining in the world.

The museum says the move of the historic aircraft will require the help of a number of volunteer organizations.

"Our friends Rangeland Truck and Train, out of Airdrie, who's moved a lot of our aircraft, including the Hawker Hurricane recently, they'll be moving it to the offsite storage," said Brian Desjardins, the museum's executive director.

"Our plan for the next few years is to rotate that plane to be on display in our historic main hangar while in the meantime we'll continue our capital campaign for a permanent structure with more space."

It's expected to take two days to take the plane apart, remove it from the atrium using a crane and transport it.

The donation is somewhat of a homecoming as the plane was originally bought from the Hangar Flight Museum in 1982.

It's being moved to make way for an upcoming redevelopment of the Suncor Energy Centre this fall.