The New England Air Museum in Windsor Locks, Conn. is home to one of the most impressive relics of the Golden Age of aviation: the Sikorsky VS-44A flying boat "Excambian."
Although it now occupies a place of honor at the museum, "Excambian" traveled a long, difficult road to get there. But thanks to volunteers at the New England Air Museum and Sikorsky Aircraft in Stratford, Conn., the plane's original manufacturer, its future is secure.
One Of Three
In 1940, American Export Airline ordered three VS-44As at a cost of $2.1 million. Before they could be delivered, the U.S. entered WW II and the Navy contracted AEA to operate the planes between New York and Foynes, Ireland for the Naval Air Transport Service.
Although they were given the Navy designation JR2S-1, all three VS-44s flew in civilian colors. The first of the three, "Excalibur," crashed in Newfoundland in October 1942; the other two went on to make 405 trans-Atlantic hops until being retired in October 1945.
"Excambian" and "Exeter" were purchased by Tampico Airlines the following year. But in August 1947, "Exeter" crashed in Paraguay while being used to haul mining supplies.
That left "Excambian," which ended up at Harbor Field in Baltimore, where it was seized by the city in 1948 for non-payment of fees. It was purchased two years later by a group of investors who rebuilt it to haul supplies to Amazon indians.
When that plan fell through, NC41881 was abandoned in Ancon Harbor, near Lima, Peru. That's where it was when a broker called Avalon Air Transport President/Chief Pilot Wilton "Dick" Probert in 1957 to ask if he was interested in buying it.
Probert bought the 47-seat flying boat and put it in service hauling passengers from Long Beach, Calif. to Catalina Island and back (PF, Apr. '97). He sold it to Antilles Air Boats, a seaplane passenger line in the U.S. Virgin Islands, in 1967.
In January '69, NC41881 was damaged beyond what Antilles Air Boats President Charles F. Blair (PF, Jul. '01) considered "reasonable" repair and was retired. It served ignominiously as a hot dog stand before being donated by Blair and his wife, actress Maureen O'Hara, to the Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Fla. in 1976.
Born Again
Despite its service with the Naval Air Transport Service, the VS-44 was considered a civil, not a military aircraft, so the Navy gave it a low restoration priority. After several years in open storage, the badly weathered airplane came to the attention of Harvey Lippincott.
Lippincott was a founder of the New England (formerly Bradley) Air Museum and a historian at United Technologies Corp., the parent company of Sikorsky Aircraft. In 1981, he talked the Navy into donating the plane to the museum.
In February '83, NC41881 was shipped by barge to Connecticut, where it sat outside for several more years awaiting restoration. Things finally began to happen in 1986 when Sikorsky agreed to sponsor the restoration.
Tony Rivino was assigned as chairman of the "Flying Boat Restoration Committee." To honcho the project, he selected Harry Hleva, a 78-year-old Sikorsky retiree who had worked on the very same VS-44 almost 50 years earlier.
Rivino spent the first $150,000 of Sikorsky's money building "a modern-day Quonset hut" to house the plane. In spring of 1988, the actual restoration finally began.
"It was much worse condition than we thought at first," said Rivino. "Not only did the Navy damage the hull when they had it, corrosion from the salt air had ruined nearly all the metal.
"We had to replace the entire keel, the main spars and all but one panel of the original skin," he explained. "Although we had all four Pratt & Whitney R-1830 Twin Wasp engines, only one was useable; the others had been pretty much turned into powder by the salt air."
As the restoration progressed, replacement engines came from several unexpected sources. One came from the Marine Corps Aviation Museum in Quantico, Va., two from a votech school in Long Island, N.Y.
Not only did Sikorsky completely restore NC41881, they returned the interior to its original WW II configuration. After he obtained the plane in 1957, Probert had extensively modified both the cockpit and cabin.
Nine years and approximately $700,000 later, Rivino watched as NC41881 was reassembled to check the fit. With a thumbs-up from Hleva, it was disassembled again, placed on its side on a specially designed trailer and trucked 71 miles from the Sikorsky plant to the museum at Bradley Int'l. Airport.
"The fuselage measured 13.4 feet high as it sat on the trailer and all the underpasses it had to negotiate were supposed to be 13.5 feet," said Rivino. "Every time we came to one, we slowed down and held our breath but we made it without a problem."
New England Air Museum Director Mike Speciale took delivery of "Excambian" in June 1997. It took another 16 months to reassemble and paint the plane but on Nov. 19th, 1998, it was put on display.
Today, it sits in the museum's Civil Aviation hangar, wearing the same white and blue AEA color scheme it wore when it was christened "Excambian" on Jan. 17th, 1942.
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