Maintainers resurrect historic aircraft

  • Published
  • By Christopher Ball
  • 95th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (AFPN) --  A group of Edwards aircraft maintainers recently joined efforts to restore a historic aircraft for the Air Force Flight Test Center museum.

A team of 36 maintainers from the 412th Equipment Maintenance Squadron's corrosion control, armament, structural maintenance, inspection flight and fabrication flight and from the 31st Test and Evaluation Squadron worked weekends and nights for more than three months to restore an F-106 Delta Dart in time for display at the 2005 Edwards Open House and Air Show.

Maj. Matt Humes, 412th Equipment Maintenance Squadron commander, said he got the idea to restore the jet after flying over the area in an Aero Club aircraft and seeing it stored behind the ammunition storage facility on the south side of the base. Once he presented the restoration idea to his maintainers, it was in their hands.

"Typical of my entire squadron, they were so enthusiastic and motivated it made my head spin," the commander said. 

The Delta Dart's journey to restoration started with Airmen from the 412th EMS Transient Alert pulling it out of about 8 inches of asphalt, which it had sunk into over the years, and towing the aircraft to the corrosion control facility.

The next step was to put back to the way it looked when it was assigned to the 329th Fighter Interceptor Squadron at George Air Force Base, Calif., which had an alert detachment at Edwards in 1960. Since the aircraft's last operational assignment was as a drone at Tyndall AFB, Fla., it was equipped with an array of special equipment that had to come off.

"We removed all the drone equipment, all the antennas and receivers," said Master Sgt. Donald Ward, 412th EMS superintendent. "There was all sorts of exterior stuff that wasn't original."

Members of the 412th EMS and 31st TES devoted many off-duty hours to restore the aircraft to the original 329th FIS colors.

"All told, we put in more than 1,300 man-hours, working weekends and evenings to get the airplane ready," said Tech. Sgt. Phil Gearhardt , a corrosion control section chief, who led the team in the restoration.

Some of the tasks involved were very labor intensive, such as spending hours on the Internet researching the plane's original markings. He credits Airman 1st Class Joshua Schreiner with all the graphics on the plane.

"(Airman Schreiner) had to recreate all the plane's markings from fuzzy old photos," Sergeant Gearhardt said. 

Sergeant Gearhardt also complimented Staff Sgt. Jeremy Strack. 

"When we got the aircraft, the radome was absolutely chewed up," Sergeant Gearhardt said. "(Sergeant Strack) took off all the old coating, did the body filler, primed and painted the radome. It looked beautiful and authentic."

One thing stressed by the commander and the two NCOs was that this project was completed by squadron volunteers during their own off-duty time, and they painted the aircraft with paint that was no longer useful and would have otherwise ended up being thrown away. During the restoration, the corrosion control facility still re-painted three other aircraft and several equipment items. Once the aircraft was complete, one final touch was added -- a locally-designed logo showing a knight holding a dart.

It's called "The Knight's Dart" as a tribute to the 412th EMS Knights, according to Maj. Humes. The names of all the people who restored it will be stenciled near the logo.

"Our squadron will be rolling up its flag due to reorganization," he said. "I wanted these volunteers to be able to bring their grandchildren out 20 years from now, point at their names and have the kids say 'That's neat, Grandpa.'"

The Knight's Dart will eventually be towed to the west gate on Rosamond Boulevard, where it will be joined by an F-100, F-101, F-102 and an F-104 as part of a century series fighter display.