Air Reborn : Volunteers Work to Put Vintage Plane Back in Action

It’s long past closing time at the Western Museum of Flight in Hawthorne, when two men in blue jumpsuits settle in for a quiet evening of work.

In a weekly ritual that has lasted more than five years, the men have come to restore a World War II-era Tiger Moth biplane, an aircraft that aviation buffs fondly recall was used as a trainer for pilots in Great Britain’s Royal Air Force.

When the restoration is done, the plane will be a major addition to the 6-year-old museum, which is dedicated to educating the public about the development of aviation in the South Bay. It will also be the first of the six planes displayed at the museum that can actually be flown.

The payoff for the men in the jumpsuits is that they will be allowed to fly the craft when their work is done.

For now, the plane is a mass of intricate wooden supports propped on a stand in the rear of the hangar that houses the museum.

The pair’s task this night is to secure an arched protective structure, called the turtleback, into the rear deck.

Maury Croskery, a compact, silver-haired man with a lilting Irish accent, is bending backward, his head cocked upward, as he struggles to line up the screws and holes.

“If it doesn’t fit, get a bigger hammer,” says his partner, Paul Herrmann, a talkative Brooklyn native with a gray beard.

Before they got involved in the project, Croskery, an aerospace engineer, and Herrmann, an electrical engineer who was recently laid off, had never restored an airplane. But when they heard that museum volunteer Bill Bruschaver was looking for helpers, they were eager to pitch in.

Several volunteers have donated time to the restoration over the years. But the bulk of the work has been done by the three men, all pilots, who estimate that they have devoted 5,200 hours to the plane so far.

Bruschaver, who is a retired manufacturing engineer, usually works alone on the plane one day a week, while Croskery and Herrmann donate their Tuesday evenings. In the five years that they have spent doting on the plane, the men have seen children finish school, leave home and get married.

Although Croskery and Herrmann know a lot about each other’s personal lives, they rarely, if ever, socialize outside their Tuesday night meetings, which usually last about four hours, excluding time for dinner at a local coffee shop. Their intimacy seems deep, yet confined to small moments of laughter over the excruciatingly slow progress of their task.

The Canadian-built Tiger Moth II was donated to the museum in 1985 by retired Northrop manager Bill Fallis, who had stored the dismantled plane in his garage for years. The plane, manufactured between 1936 and 1946, was designed by the late Sir Geoffrey de Havilland, an amateur entomologist who named all his aircraft after insects.

By today’s standards, the airplane is a relic. It could do loops and rolls. But the 1,800-pound two-seater with a wingspan of 29 feet, 4 inches never flew faster than about 110 m.p.h.--”with a tail wind and a dive,” Herrmann said.

But in its day, the open-cockpit plane was extremely popular. In a booklet about the Tiger Moth, Michael F. Jerram says the plane was “born out of de Havilland’s dream of a cheap, simple to operate, easy to fly machine which might become ‘everyman’s airplane.’ ”

Herrmann and Croskery were just boys when the Tiger Moth was in its heyday. But something about the plane inspires them to return week after week to restore it.

Croskery, 56, said he decided to volunteer for the restoration because he learned to fly in a Tiger Moth about 30 years ago. “They say if you could fly these, you could fly anything,” he said. “They’re tricky, but forgiving at the same time.”

And Herrmann, 51, said his devotion stems from a love for World War II-era planes. “It’s the era of ‘wooden ships and iron men,’ ” Herrmann said. “I guess I just like the romance of that era.”

Both men, however, say that they might have given up the tedious drudgery years ago had museum officials not promised them that they could fly the plane when it’s finally done next year. “For the first four years, all we were doing is making bits and pieces,” Croskery said. “But this year, we saw the wings go on, so things are looking up.”

When the plane came to the museum, “it was, in a phrase, a basket case,” Herrmann said. “It was in pieces. Most of the wood was rotten or split. It really was in bad shape. . . . When I saw it at first, to be honest with you, I thought ‘this is almost an impossible task.’ ”

Before they could begin restoring it, they needed to find detailed drawings that outlined the plane’s original specifications. Unfortunately, none existed.

They obtained a couple of pamphlets from trade organizations that had pictures of a dismantled Tiger Moth. The photos, along with some sketches and their own measurements of other Tiger Moths, became the blueprint for their restoration.

The project has cost the museum about $10,000. The money was donated by companies and individuals who support the Southern California Historical Aviation Foundation, the private, nonprofit organization that operates the museum.

The first few years were the most monotonous, the men agreed.

Most of the plane’s wooden structures, including the intricate wing structure, had rotted away. The animal-fat-based glues had largely disintegrated and most of the steel screws and nails had rusted.

The biggest task was restoring the wings. To meet Federal Aviation Administration requirements for flight worthiness, they would have to re-create the plane’s four wings out of perfect, close-grained, quarter-sawed spruce. The FAA requires builders to use spruce because it is the strongest for its weight.

The men searched nearly eight months before they finally found an aircraft dealer in Kansas who had what they needed. They would spend more than a year cutting and sanding about 92 ribs for each of the plane’s eight spars, which are long pieces of wood that run the full length of each wing.

They assembled the pieces with resin and epoxy glue and held them together with brass nails and screws. When they finished the wings, they coated each surface with four coats of varnish.

Today, their handiwork, which incorporates parts from as far as Australia and Great Britain, nearly resembles an aircraft. The engine, which has been overhauled by Ed Clark, owner of Moth Aircraft Co. in Hawthorne, is soon to be installed, as is the instrument panel.

After an FAA inspector approves their structural work, they plan to spend the next year sewing fabric on the wings and fuselage, and painting the plane. If all goes as planned, the Tiger Moth should be airborne by next summer.

Despite some occasional bouts of boredom and frustration with the project, Croskery and Herrmann say they would volunteer to do it again.

“For me, it’s been a night out with the boys,” Herrmann said. “It’s recreation. Hopefully, we’ll get to fly it and enjoy it. But I don’t think I’ll miss working on it--as long as I have another plane to work on.”