“That’s exactly what my father was doing on his last flight,” Jim
said. “He was sharing the Corsair with some disabled veterans at
the Dorn VA Medical Center as he made his annual Veterans Day
flyover. I was flying on his wing in the SNJ when he radioed that he
was having engine problems. Unfortunately he didn’t have many
options available as the terrain below him was covered with residential housing. At the last minute Dad turned the Corsair away
from the houses and put it into some trees as gently as he could.
Sadly, he did not survive.”
RESURRECTION OF A LEGEND
It is often said that time heals all wounds. While that may be true
in most instances, the healing process for Jim took him on a six-year roller coaster ride before he finally made the decision to
rebuild the Corsair in 2008. Jim’s goal was to use as many of the
parts and pieces from the original airplane as he could and then
supplement those damaged pieces with other Corsair parts he had
accumulated over the years. Beginning with the massive center
section, Jim began a very detailed, step-by-step restoration process, one that he estimated would take eight to 10 years of diligent
work—eight to 10 years.
“I really didn’t give much thought to that restoration time figure
until a family friend, Bill Klaers, called me up one day after I had
invested almost a year and a half into the project,” Jim said. “Bill
has restored his own share of warbirds in the past at his Colorado
Springs facility called WestPac when he reminded me that it would
take 10 years or more to complete the Corsair. Before I could
acknowledge his observation, he then stuck me with a hot poker by
saying, ‘And you will be 60-plus years old.’ That hit me like a brick.
Needless to say in early 2009 I boxed everything up and placed the
Corsair project in Bill’s hands.”
Although the F4U- 4 project was now located west of the
Mississippi River, that didn’t stop Jim from traveling
out to Colorado at least once a month to dirty his
hands and bloody his knuckles. Jim admitted he
encountered the same issue most homebuilders and
restorers face while working on a project during the
early stages—trying to deal with the unpleasant feel-
ing of time standing still.
“With all the man-hours you put into the project
you expect to see more progress early on,” Jim
explained. “But having been through this before,
I realized that it takes methodical baby steps moving
forward before you start to see any real results. It
doesn’t matter if you’re working on a Cub, RV, or
Corsair; you have to work on all the individual components before you actually join them together. They are
all small milestones when you complete each one, but it
is not until you mate the tail onto the fuselage or the
wings and gear to the center section; that’s when you
While Jim starterd the restoration on his own, he eventually placed the
responsibility in the hands of WestPac, and flew out to Colorado at least once
a month to work on the plane.
