PORT CLINTON — Ohio is known as the “Birthplace of Aviation,” and a group of volunteers is bringing an important piece of transportation history into the present.
The Tri-Motor Heritage Foundation is working at the Liberty Aviation Museum to restore a 1929 Ford tri-motor airplane that’s been grounded for decades.
“We don’t have the engines, we don’t have the props, there’s a lot we don’t have,” said Jerry Duncan. “But, there’s a lot that we do have, so construction continues.”
It’s been a work in progress for almost 20 years. The plane is being built by hand, and the group said it’s meeting the FAA requirement that all components be the same or superior to the original.
“Almost every rivet is in the identical spot, if you can believe that, and the airplane is almost identical to the original,” said Tri-Motor Heritage Foundation President Jody Brausch.
Brausch admitted he isn’t an airplane mechanic.
“I’m an investment advisor,” he said.
But he is a pilot and has spent some time behind the controls of one of the planes.
“I just felt like, if this generation didn’t restore one for the community, for posterity, it would never get done,” Brausch said.
When it’s finished, 11 people will be able to take flight in the passenger cabin with a pilot and co-pilot in the cockpit.
Volunteer Jack DeVore said he remembered riding in one of these planes as a kid, and said it was used to haul freight to the Lake Erie islands.
“We had it filled clear back to the door, and they put a ladder up and we climbed in through the escape hatch, so you could get in and sit down,” he said. “I mean, that’s how loaded it was.”
He said the third flight he ever remembers taking was in a Ford tri-motor aircraft. His first flight didn’t go very far.
“I was a test pilot for my brother’s homemade airplane, which didn’t fly,” he said.
Instead it fell in a heap and DeVore broke his ankle.
“It was a quick down,” he said. “What it consisted of, I can still see it. It was a wine cask that had two ironing boards for wings. It had a little baby buggy carriage that was supposed to be the retractable gear. When he pushed you off the roof, you were supposed to fall down and sail away. But nothing sailed, it just fell down. It was a quick ride.”
But, the tri-motor they are building will have more air time.
The particular plane they’re working on was a part of Island Airlines from 1946 to 1952. It served as a primary mode of transportation and was even used as a school bus.
“In the wintertime, this was the only transportation you had getting on and off the island,” said DeVore. “So, they hauled anything and everything — bodies — it was a hearse. It was everything you wanted it to be.”
Before it flew in Ohio, the exact same airplane was the first in Aero Mexico’s fleet in 1929. After that, it was sold to Pan Am. Then it spent six years island hopping in Port Clinton before it was bought by a company in Montana that used it as a “smoke jumper.”
It was badly damaged and left in a heap for years, later recovered by the Tri-Motor Heritage Foundation.
“It was our hope to restore what we had, but the aircraft was in such bad disrepair that we literally had to restore or rebuild almost every component of the airplane,” Brausch said.
The project is a labor of love for volunteers like Duncan, and a chance to relive their childhoods.
“When I was 11 years old, I built my first model of a tri-motor and I never imagined that I’d be working on one,” he said.
The volunteers are working to help history take flight for a new generation. They hope the plane will get off the ground in the next three to four years.
The Tri-Motor Heritage Foundation is a non-profit and the entire project is funded through donations and more information may be found at restoretheford.org.
