Repairing the past to display in the present

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Chad Padgett
  • 436th AW Public Affairs
DOVER AIR BASE, Del. --  Coming in with bullets holes, missing parts and sometimes having housed wild animals, aircraft donated to the Air Mobility Command Museum have lived a hard life.

Retiree and civilian volunteers work in teams to restore these aircraft back to their original pristine condition for the AMC Museum.

"We usually come in twice a week, for about six hours," said Marty Martel. "We work together in teams on the aircraft doing repairs, restoration and fabrication."

Many of the volunteers are far past the age of retirement, some past the age of 80, and yet they still have the desire to climb in and out of aircraft doing hard labor to fix the aircraft. Many of the volunteers had either flown or worked maintenance on the same model aircraft earlier in their lives.

"Most of us just wanted something to pass the time," added Ed Barnes. "A lot of us are retired veterans of the Air Force, we used to fly and repair these aircraft for a living. Now, this gives us something we can do, that we love to do."

Restoring the aircraft is certainly one way to pass the time, some of the aircraft can take more than three years to restore.

"Some of the aircraft come in pretty good shape, you just have to refurbish the interior," said Mr. Barnes. "Most of the aircraft are brought to us in pieces either by truck, by helicopter or flown in either under their own power or inside another aircraft. They come in and they are completely apart; wings off, tail off, and engines off. There is a lot of cleaning up. It's a giant puzzle and we have to put them back together."

A problem volunteers run into is when an aircraft is missing parts. Many of the aircraft are long past their service date and with no new parts being made, tracking down old parts can feel like a modern day treasure hunter.

"We've had donated planes flown in and nearly everything taken," said Charlie Tanner. "One they flew in and took the engines off, took the wheels off, took the brakes off and siphoned the gas and oil out of it. Then they put different engines and wheels in it for display."

The volunteers try to keep each aircraft as authentic to the original as possible. This meant they would have to track down all new parts for aircraft that come in.

"We get parts wherever we can," said Don Rynes. "We've found parts on internet sites and sometimes we get lucky working with scrappers. We get a lot of support from the [436th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron]. The metal shops on base fabricate parts when we can't and we also do restoration on any of the parts we can. Every year these planes are out of service it just gets a little harder to find the parts we need."

"We had planes come in missing parts like rudder petals," added Mike Phillips. "We took them down to the 436th AMXS and they were able to make two new ones for us. The hydraulics and sheet metal shop has been a lot of help."

Once the volunteers have the parts they need, they use technical order libraries, magazines, the internet and first-hand knowledge to try and make sure every detail on the plane is correct.

"All these aircraft had a tech order library when they were produced," said Charlie Tanner. "The frustrating thing is when the plane is scrapped, a lot of times, the tech order goes with it. We have to look everywhere we can to make sure we have every details of these aircraft correct."

Touring through the aircraft, climbing up steep ladders and fitting through tight spaces, the men begin to seem more like their younger selves. They begin telling old stories and joking with one another about days past and the things they and the aircraft had seen.

Once the parts are ordered or recreated, the instruments repainted, the inside refurbished and the aircraft is reassembled, it is put on display at the AMC museum and the volunteers start over again on a new aircraft.

Editors note: Aircraft from the AMC Museum will be on display at the June 20 - 21 Dover Open House.