Museum’s B-17 restoration will give visitors an inside view of historic plane

WARNER ROBINS -- The Museum of Aviation’s B-17 bomber that is now in pieces is at least a year away from being whole again, but it also offers a unique opportunity.

Visitors will be able to see the beloved plane like few who didn’t serve as aircraft mechanics during World War II ever have.

Not only is the plane the museum’s first project to be restored while on public display, but the project also will go far beyond cosmetics. Volunteers already are painstakingly doing things that might never be noticed once it’s all complete.

George Adler was working in the hot sun Wednesday to free the propeller on one of the engines. After 54 years outside in Peru, Indiana, the blades had frozen up.

But it was going to take a lot more than some WD-40 to get the blades moving again. The problem wasn’t just the propeller itself. The engine also was frozen. Adler was trying to get the pistons moving again so the blade would turn.

The restoration team probably could put the plane back together with the propellers still frozen and museum visitors wouldn’t be the wiser.

But “we would know,” said Bob Denison, the lead volunteer on the project.

Many of the internal parts of the plane, including the fuel tank bladders in the wings, are still there and are visible while the wings are off the plane.

“All of these things that are usually hidden from sight are now there for people to see,” said the museum’s curator, Mike Rowland.

Many of the plane’s internal parts will be restored as well. That’s part of the reason the project is expected to cost at least $400,000 and take four to five years to complete.

“We could restore it and just make it look nice, but that just doesn’t seem right,” Rowland said. “It’s such a rare airplane.”

While the plane couldn’t be open for the public to enter on a regular basis, there may be opportunities in the future for people to see the inside. That’s why the interior will be restored to exacting detail, but Rowland said it’s also a matter of the museum’s integrity.

“We want this to be more than just an empty shell,” he said.

As many of the pieces as possible, even those that aren’t currently being worked on, will be on display, along with the fuselage. Some of it may at times be taken to Robins Air Force Base’s facility that strips paint from planes.

Adler is a retired computer technician for the federal court system who lives in Atlanta. When he heard the museum was getting the B-17, he volunteered to work on it.

He drives to Warner Robins once a week and stays overnight in a hotel to get in two days of work before heading back home. He started even before any of the parts of the plane arrived, doing such work as helping build structures that will be needed during the restoration.

“It’s my favorite plane in the world,” he said as he worked on the engine last week. “It’s a dream for me.”

To contact writer Wayne Crenshaw, call 256-9725.

This story was originally published August 31, 2015 at 10:19 PM with the headline "Museum’s B-17 restoration will give visitors an inside view of historic plane ."