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Letter to the Editor
This article originally appeared in the January 2001 Issue of INSIGHT
In Search of Warbirds
Million dollar plus repair orders and cycle times of one to three years - that’s the warbird repair/restoration business. Recently I happened across the magazine Flight Journal, which covers multiple areas in the aviation arena. I was reliving some of my past experiences as a private pilot, and I came across two advertisements that caught my eye, one for warbird flights and the other for Tom Reilly’s Warbird Restoration School, Museum, and aircraft "bodyshop."
Both advertisements had the same Kissimmee Florida address, a few miles from Orlando, where I was headed to NACE. Well, last year at NACE I took I-CAR classes, and they were informative, but wouldn’t it be more fun to learn about fixing warbirds, and maybe even get a ride in one.
I called the school and told them who I was and was connected with K.T. Budde-Jones, the public relations manager and, as it turned out, jack-of-all-trades around the school/museum/shop.
I told K.T. that I was interested in writing an article about the "shop" and school, and she avowed how that was great. She would send background material and, best of all, pick me up at the Orlando hotel and schedule a day of sample instruction starting with fabricating a rib for a B17 they were working on, trying my luck with an English wheel, shrinking and sheathing aluminum, and perhaps throwing in a bit of riveting and priming.
Well, the great day arrived, and I had convinced (with little struggle on my part) Jack Billington, former head of Auto Physical Damage for Nationwide Insurance and an avid pilot and warbird fan, to come with me. K.T. picked us up at the hotel as promised and we were quickly at Tom Reilly’s "shop"/school/museum. As we pulled up, before us were parked a couple of B25s, a B26, an Avenger, and in the distance, several AT6s and a P51 - all flyable.
Then the hangar/bodyshop - never seen anything like it: two B17s in pieces, several AT6s in various stages of repair, a YAK, a Messerschmitts 109, a couple of jets, and a Corsair nearly back together after hitting a mountain head on at 300 mph, plus a basket-case P38.
This was one hell of a bodyshop: fifteen plus technicians, all hourly, a shop door rate of between $25 and $35 for all repair tasks from radios and instruments to complete fabrication of new parts. The only sublet was for engine work.
Body repair on airplanes is quoted either on a time and materials basis or an overall bid on the job, and Reilly does it both ways. My hunch is that the profit in fixed price work is/was negligible.
With a cycle time in years instead of days interesting things happen. Plane owners get divorced and perhaps the plane gets sold while still under contract, other owners die, and corporations owning planes go under or get acquired, and the new owners may or may not be interested in completing the repair process.
Repair process on aircraft is similar to unibody work with a couple of major exceptions. First, no pulls. If a part is bent it is most likely replaced or carefully straightened by hand if non-structural. Second, no "bondo," and each part is carefully primed before assembly. Tolerances are significantly closer than for auto repair.
Progress reports and job costing seemed to get short shrift, as the timeframe to repair and the overall complexity of the process is coupled with a non-existent database for "times," thus making the job doubly difficult.
After four hours or so of working in the shop I elected to spend a little money and go warbird flying with their affiliated operation Warbird Adventures, as that looked like a lot more fun.
It was! Doing light acrobatics in an AT6 vintage 1943 beats all. After a short instruction on how to use the parachute, Paul, a resident flight instructor, and I took off, and it was time to play.
This flight and the day learning about aircraft collision repair, along with the Beach Boy concert, made this the best NACE, for me, in eighteen years of attending that august event.
Publisher’s note: More information about the one week "hands-on" school, the cost of which, including airtime in a B25, is $995, can be obtained at (407) 933-1942. Their website is www.airbirdmuseum.com.
-Charles Baker-
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