State Supreme Court OKs auction of vintage Hawkins & Powers aircraft

Roughly twenty vintage airplanes – or at least, pieces of them -- are up for auction at South Big Horn County Airport in Greybull. 

The planes, including a 1948 Fairchild C-119G, Boeing KC-97 and Lockheed P2V-7, were once part of Hawkins & Powers Aviation’s assets. Bob Hawkins, who now runs the Museum of Flight and Aerial Firefighting in Greybull, recalled that the planes have likely been on county property for over 30 years. Most were used for parts. 

The aerial firefighting company Hawkins & Powers was established in 1969 and provided aircraft for government firefighting contracts. The company went out of business after June 2002, when two high-profile fatal plane crashes took place. 

An auction listing in General Aviation News from December 2005 reads: “The assets of one of the oldest aerial firefighting contract companies in the United States are up for sale. Hawkins and Powers Aviation Inc. of Greybull, Wyo., has gone out of business, selling all its assets to the Great American Group, which in turn is selling them to the highest bidder.”

As Hawkins recalled, people around the country bought the planes, and many ended up on leased county property. 

GROUNDED IN COURT

In 2011, Harold Sheppard Jr., who runs a plane salvage and trucking business, Sheppard Trucking, began leasing part of “the boneyard” at South Big Horn County Airport for a metal scrapping and recycling business. He stored several vintage planes there, but over the years, failed to pay rent. 

Airport Manager Paul Thur reported that rent for the property amounted to about one cent per square foot a year. In 2019, Big Horn County sued Sheppard for unpaid rent. 

According to appeal documents, circuit court issued a money judgement against Sheppard and ordered that he remove his property from the airport, which he did not. In April of 2021, the county filed a $543,600 storage lien against Sheppard’s property at the airport. 

Sheppard sued the county to stop the sale of his property, and throughout the following years, the case was pushed all the way to the Wyoming Supreme Court in March 2025. 

“They ruled in our favor every time. So now, we as in Big Horn County own them, as default, I guess, and we’re auctioning them off,” Thur said. 

AIRPLANES FOR SALE

At the August Big Horn County commissioners meeting, options for the airplanes were discussed. The airport board initially indicated that it would like to keep seven of the planes, which they stated the airport has become known for. 

Hawkins, however, found that the museum already had completed models of the planes on their property, without room for many more. The condition of the planes also lent them difficult to move, as the wheels are less than functional. 

The more realistic option, it was decided, would be to put the planes up for auction and scrap whatever is leftover to recoup funds. 

The auction, held online at www.publicsurplus.com/sms/bighornco,wy/browse/home, opened Sept. 19 and will run through Oct. 3. Bid prices started as low as $25. Other equipment found on the property has also been listed for sale. 

There is a possibility for the auction to auto-extend, with last-minute bids adding time to the countdown. Buyers will be given 90 days to remove their purchases from the property or be given the opportunity to sign a temporary lease with the county to keep them at the boneyard until arrangements can be made. 

As for what will become of the property once the planes are gone, there currently aren’t any plans. 

“There’s no development ideas or anything out there, there’s no utilities out there. The idea is to just clean things up,” Thur said.