Why are there planes hanging from the ceiling at Appliance Center’s Maumee Store? Without a doubt, it is the number one most-asked question at the store.
We checked in with General Manager Kenny Wanemacher to get the story behind the most distinctive feature of our showroom.
“We have almost 30 model airplanes suspended from the ceiling,” Wanemacher said. These are large-scale remote-controlled models with wingspans several feet across. Many aren’t much smaller than their full-sized counterparts.
Unique Feature
Back in 2009, Appliance Center quadrupled the size of the store to make room for Ohio’s largest selection of furniture, mattresses, and appliances. The expansive showroom has a lot of ceiling space. Wanemacher said the original idea was just to have something unique on the ceiling.
Appliance Center employees built the first plane themselves from a kit. That first plane is suspended near the customer service desk.
Sharing with The Community
“Once we got that one up in the air,” Wanemacher says, “We had a lot of enthusiasts that had them in their basements, sheds, or garage collecting dust. They brought them over and wanted to put them on display for the community to see.”
All but two of the planes have been flown. Only the red plane built by Appliance Center employees and a silver Mustang near the front door never made it off the ground.
The owner of the Mustang spent 15 years on the project but never got around to flying it. “But you could fly it,” Wanemacher said. “And it would go around 93 miles an hour. There’s a lot of history behind these airplanes.”
Stop by our Maumee location to see the planes and while you’re here, shop Ohio’s largest selection of furniture, mattresses, and appliances.