7
FIESELER FI 156 C-2 STORCH
ILYUSHIN IL-2M3 SHTURMOVIK
NORTH AMERICAN B-25J MITCHELL
The Fieseler Fi 156 C-2 Storch is one of the oddest-looking aircraft in the FHC’s collection. Made to fly “slow and low” the plane is a far cry from the streamlined designs of planes like the Spitfire and Mustang.
Pilots of pursuit aircraft, an early name for fighters, were often focused primarily on the war in the air. Interceptors and escorts usually worked to protect, or destroy, other aircraft.
However, as many infantrymen are fond of saying, the important battles almost always
take place on the ground.
Other types of aircraft were built to help, or harm, those struggling in that brutal world below the clear blue skies. The FHC aircraft described in this chapter had a significant impact on the battles on the ground. Several of the iconic aircraft in the collection excelled at aerial tasks, such as scouting, bombing, or ground attack.
The Fieseler Fi 156 C-2 was the antithesis of a sleek speedster like the Spitfire. No
designer at the Fieseler Flugzeugbau cared at all about high speeds or firepower because the Storch was built to fly slow and low, taking on the duties of a liaison and observation aircraft.
There was nothing revolutionary about the plane’s construction as the prototype took
shape in 1935 and 1936. The fuselage of the aircraft was welded steel tubing, the wings were wood, and the entire exterior of the aircraft was covered in fabric. With no need to
make the plane quick, a web of struts and bracing tubes surrounded the airframe. The
gangly fixed landing gear hung down with a pair of too-small-looking tires attached. In the air, the plane resembled a stork getting ready to land on a rooftop; only those who flew the Storch thought the plane was beautiful.
The Storch has “transit panels” on its wings and fuselage. The yellow areas were painted on German planes on the Eastern Front to keep German soldiers in Russia from firing at “friendly” aircraft.
Two things were of vital importance as designers worked to shape the plane—visibility
and lift. The wings sat high on the fuselage of the Storch, giving flyers an unobstructed view of the ground below. The two-person cockpit was practically a greenhouse filled
with a puzzle-like layout of flat, Perspex glass panes. The wide cabin even allowed a flyer to lean over in his seat and look straight down as he passed over something of interest.
The second trait made the Fi 156 most remarkable. Its massive, straight wing had a
loading factor of just ten pounds per square foot. Combined with big flaps and efficient leading edge slats, this allowed the plane to maintain lift even at very slow speeds. A Storch could cruise, under full control, at airspeeds down to thirty-one miles per hour. If there was a slight headwind, the plucky Storch could actually hover near a target as it spotted for German artillery.
The machine was so slow, in fact, that designers allowed for the wings to fold back
against the fuselage. That way, even on a blustery day, the Storch could be moved from place to place on the battlefield on the ground.
Operating near the front lines, the short takeoff and landing abilities of the Storch became legendary. The plane could spring into the air from a field, a road, or any other
open space in just fifty-five yards with an eight miles per hour headwind. With the same wind, the plane could touch down in an area less than half that size.
The Storch became something of a flying Jeep for Germany in the Spanish Civil War and then during World War II. It was used to spot for artillery, shuttle VIPs, evacuate injured men, and carry mail and messages over combat areas. Famously, a Storch was used to spirit away Fascist Dictator Benito Mussolini from his boulder-strewn mountaintop
prison near Gran Sasso in 1943.
Like many German engines of the era, the Storch’s Argus As 10 is an inverted inline. The little V-8 can generate up to 240
horsepower and is cooled by air entering the scoop below in the plane’s propeller hub.
The FHC Storch is one of five Fi-156s restored under the ownership of Jan Mueller of Canton, Michigan. Mueller took over a project started by an acquaintance who had
acquired the first of the Storch aircraft in France in the late 1970s. Mueller decided to expand the project and engaged his friend to return to Europe and find more Storch aircraft and parts. At the same time, Mueller hired Bruce Panzl to set up a rebuilding operation at Mettetal Airport in Plymouth, Michigan. Altogether, two German and three
French Storch aircraft were rebuilt.
The restoration of the first four aircraft took some eleven years, culminating in the
showing of three at the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) Fly-in in August 1990.
The FHC aircraft was registered with the FAA on October 18, 1989, but it was not one of the three flown to the EAA event. An article of the time says “[the fourth] had to be left behind because of an eleventh hour engine problem.” The FHC purchased the aircraft on
December 5, 2000.
The Storch was a C-2 version built in Kassel at the Fieseler factory on November 24, 1939. The aircraft is painted in a standard splinter camouflage with the distinctive yellow bands on the fuselage and wing tips signifying service on the Eastern Front. The 2E + RA Verbandskennzeichen(operational code) indicates that this is aircraft “R” of the wing headquarters of bomber wing 54. This unit participated in the first stages of Operation Barbarossa, the Nazi invasion of Russia, through December 1941.
While some aircraft have leading edge slats that deploy at low speeds to help with maneuverability, the Storch’s speed, relatively, is always slow. Therefore, the Fieseler designers equipped the plane with fixed slats. This system spans the plane’s entire long wing and helps the aircraft take off and land in incredibly short distances.
This straight-down view gives a good look into the roomy and mostly transparent cabin of the Fieseler Storch. All the glass served a purpose as a pilot scouted from the air, but FHC pilots say the cockpit offers no relief from the sun on a hot day.
The venerable Storch needed some type of protection as it flew over the battlefield. The rear-seater could turn around and take on any enemy flyer who gave chase with his MG 15. The back wall of the plane was covered with spare drums of ammunition for the machine gun.
You can’t beat the view from the pilot’s seat of the Storch. The greenhouse cockpit was made for the flyer, operating as a spotter for German artillery or scouting for his unit. Slanted panes at his elbows even allowed the crew to lean over and look straight down.
The Storch’s wings fold back to help crews hide the plane close to the front lines and to allow men to move it via road or rail.
When the FHC’s hangar becomes crowded, mechanics sometimes fold the wings of the plane to allow a bit more space in the exhibit area.
The Fieseler Storch is a bit on the homely side but it was tremendously successful at its job. The planes were so unique, simple, and capable that when Allied units captured them, they often used the aircraft as their own. It’s fair to say that the Storch was not pretty, it was practical.
A nose-on view shows how the Storch got its nickname. The plane’s long, gangly landing gear was reminiscent of a stork’s long legs as it landed on a rooftop.
As much as you can in the big-winged Storch, a German pilot shows off for the camera in this 1940s publicity photo. While the FHC’s aircraft is equipped with a tail wheel, this version of the liaison plane has a tail skid for operating from grass fields.
Another plane in the FHC took a more direct role in the fighting on the ground. The
famous Ilyushin Il-2 Shturmovik was produced in epic numbers in the Soviet Union during World War II and flew on the Eastern Front against Nazi Germany. The heavily armored
aircraft was designed to operate close to the ground and attack enemy troops, tanks, and trucks.
The first example of this aircraft type flew in 1939. While the aft part of the fuselage was made of wood, the forward half was heavily armored. The vital areas of the plane—
pilot, engine, and fuel tank—were shrouded in armor plate for protection against ground fire. The plane carried machine guns, heavy cannon, and bombs on internal and on
external racks.
Very few Il-2s had entered service by the start of the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.
As Germany threatened Moscow and other cities in western Russia, many Soviet aircraft
factories were moved eastward over the Ural Mountains. When Stalin was not getting the desired production rates from Ilyushin and Mikoyan-Gurevich, a fighter builder, he sent telegrams to factory managers:
You have let down our country and our Red Army. You have the nerve not to manufacture Il-2s until now. Our Red Army now needs Il-2 aircraft like the air it breathes, like the bread it eats. Shenkman produces one Il-2 a day and Tretyakov builds one or two MiG-3s daily. It is a mockery of our country and the Red Army. I ask you not to try the government’s patience, and demand that you manufacture more Ils. This is my final warning.—Stalin
Production, of course, increased dramatically, so much so that, if you add the number
of up-rated Il-10s to those of the Il-2, the Il-2-type aircraft becomes the single most-produced military aircraft design in all of aviation history.
The Il-2 is equipped with a dependable Allison V-1710-113 12-cylinder engine. The left-hand turning power plant and propeller came from a P-38 Lightning fighter.
The Soviets needed them, too. Flying ground attack missions against seasoned German
gun, plane, and tank crews led to the loss of thousands of Red Army planes each year. The somewhat inflated Luftwaffe claims for Il-2 aircraft destroyed in 1943 and 1944 were
6,900 and 7,300 respectively.
Like Soviet T-34 tanks on the ground, legions of Il-2s overwhelmed the Germans. The
enemy knew the plane as der Schwarze Tod (the black death). German flyers, being somewhat literal, called the plane the “hunchback.” Other German aviators, well aware of the plane’s legendary toughness, called the Il-2 Betonvogel, loosely, “the concrete bird.”
The Russians had nicknames for the plane, too. Soviet pilots lovingly called the plane Ilyusha, like the character in the famous novel The Brothers Karamazov. To the Red Army on the ground, the Il-2 was “the Winged Tank” or, perhaps most endearingly of all, “the Flying Infantryman.”
The Il-2 helped win the war in Russia and the plane took on an almost mythical quality, like the Spitfire did in the dark days of the Battle of Britain. Even today, the Il-2 holds a special place in the hearts of the Russian people as the fearsome tank-killing machine that helped push the Germans out of the Soviet Union.
The FHC’s Il-2M3 is the only flying example of the type left in the world today. It is also the only Shturmovik currently on display in the Western Hemisphere.
Considered an icon in Russia, the famous Shturmovik helped turn the tide on the Eastern Front by hammering German tanks and troops from the air.
Reports mention that direct strikes from German 20mm cannon failed to penetrate the Il-2’s bulletproof wind screen. The plane’s glass is faceted; when one pane was crazed by damage, the others remained unharmed, allowing the pilot to continue to fly and fight.
Russian Il-2 warplanes are photographed over Berlin in 1945. While Shturmovik aircraft and T-34 tanks were often outclassed by German high-tech military machines, in the end, the Soviets overwhelmed the Nazis with sheer numbers.
The FHC’s Il-2 is photographed under construction in southwestern Siberia in December 2010. The plane was assembled in a former fighter factory by Russian craftsmen and aviation specialists.
The FHC plane is an Ilyushin Il-2M3, sometimes called an “Il-2 Type 3” or a “1944
production” Il-2. The plane has a 23mm cannon in each wing, as well as 7.62mm ShKAS
machine guns. Designers gave the 1944 version of the plane all-metal wings and swept the planform of the outer wings aft, changing the center of gravity.
The center of gravity had been altered when a tail gunner was added to the design more than a year before. The new fifteen-degree swept-back wings transferred more lift aft, thus compensating for more weight in the rear section of the plane. As a result, the 1944
version of the attack bomber, sometimes called the “wing with arrow” model, regained
some of the exceptional control of the first, single seat Il-2s.
Il-2M3 serial number 305401 was built in the city of Kuybyshev, present day Samara,
in the middle of 1943. Kuybyshev was a hub of Il-2 production with multiple factories
creating some twenty thousand examples of the slightly over thirty-six thousand total
aircraft built. Interestingly, Kuybyshev was also chosen to be the capital of the USSR
should Moscow have fallen to the invading Germans.
After construction, the plane was assigned to the 828th Attack Aviation Regiment of
the 260th Composite Air Division. This unit was part of the Seventh Air Army, which
supported the Soviet Red Army’s Seventh Army on the lower part of the Karelian Front
(along the border between Finland and the USSR).
The plane participated in more than a year of combat flying, but little is known about its particular missions and feats. The plane was most likely involved in the Svir–
Petrozavodsk Offensive in the summer of 1944 against Finnish forces.
The aircraft met its end on October 10, 1944. This date corresponds to the October 7
Petsamo–Kirkenes Offensive. This major military offensive was mounted by the Red
Army against the Germans in northern Finland and Norway.
ARMOR
Operating close to the enemy on the ground can be bad for your health. The designers
built an armored shell around the plane’s engine and pilot to help keep the Il-2 flying.
The armor ranged from 4mm to 12mm thick with heavy plates held together with
rivets and bolts. Some of the armor on the FHC’s Il-2 still hold bullet holes and dents from combat in 1944.
It probably only took a second or two for a young man recruited to be an Il-2
gunner to recognize that he would be situated outside this armored shell meant to
protect the plane’s vital components. As horrifying as it sounds, gunners could be
“changed out” like a crushed wingtip or burst tire. In fact, the position was so
transient that no one even bothered to design a real seat for the flyer. The gunner rode on a canvas “swing” affixed to either side of the fuselage.
Wielding a heavy Berezin UBT machine gun, it was the job of the tail gunner to keep enemy fighters away while the Il-2
was making its attack runs and then heading away from the action. Never as fast as German fighters, the tail gun was a must to protect the Shturmovik.
Hidden from most who see the Il-2 on the ground, the plane has a large scoop on the top of its nose. Air is routed through the center of the aircraft’s fuselage to a radiator near the pilot’s feet. The “buried” location of the delicate radiator helps protect it from enemy fire.
The instrument panel of the Il-2 has the principal flying instruments grouped in the center with engine gauges to the left. The control stick has two thumb buttons; for machine guns and cannon.
On October 10, the plane was crewed by Junior Lt. K. P. Prohorov, the pilot, and
gunner S. M. Semyonov. While attacking an enemy airfield in the afternoon, some five
kilometers southeast of Luostari, the plane was hit by antiaircraft fire and its engine began to smoke.
Gunner Semyonov bailed out of the plane at a low altitude and was killed when he
struck the ground. Pilot Prohorov headed southeast, ran out of altitude in the vicinity of the Titovka River, and attempted to land the plane on one of the thousands of frozen lakes
in the area.
The landing was a violent one, severely wounding Prohorov, who later died. The wreck
was abandoned and later sank into the lake during the spring thaw.
In 1991, the crashed plane was discovered in the nameless lake by searchers scouting
the area with a helicopter. The recovery crew found rockets and bombs still attached to the plane when it was raised to the surface.
Many parts from this aircraft that were still relatively intact were used in the
subsequent restoration, such as the engine compartment, propeller, the central part of the fuselage, and parts of the tail. The wings had been severely damaged in the crash landing decades before and could not be used in the restoration. Restorers estimate that 60 percent of all the original parts used in the FHC aircraft project came from this wreck.
A second donor of parts came from the wreck of aircraft serial number 4283. This plane was crewed by pilot Junior Lt. Vladimir Andreevich Kurochkin and gunner Sgt. Vladimir
Sevostianovich Zenkov of the 658th Ground Attack Regiment in the 11th Mixed Air
Corps. Both men were called to service from the Yaroslavl Tire Factory.
The Shturmovik’s main gear was built extra tough. The burly twin struts look like those seen on cargo planes. When the gear was raised, the exposed tires acted as an anti-damage feature, should the plane be forced to land on its belly.
On February 12, 1944, the men and their plane did not return from a mission. It is
reported that the pair intentionally crashed their damaged plane into a German antiaircraft battery near the village of Maevo in the Novocokolnicheskiy District. Both flyers were nominated for the title Hero of the Soviet Union, but received lesser awards posthumously for their heroic actions.
The plane wreck was found in Lake Trostinetz and raised. Parts from the center section and the main landing gear legs from this plane were used in the Il-2 restoration.
A third source of components for the plane came from Il-2 serial number 7593 which
crashed in a swampy area named Stivany near the town of Pyzhov. Flown by Grigory A.
Fedirko and a gunner named I. A. Rylov, this plane was hit by antiaircraft fire. The plane crashed into the swamp on January 12, 1944.
Locals attempted a recovery as early as the 1980s, but found the plane buried too
deeply in the muddy swamp. Later recovery attempts were more successful at extricating parts of the aircraft. The restorers were able to locate many parts around the cockpit area to use in the restoration. These included instrumentation, control stick, cockpit floor, and other cockpit parts.
The FHC’s aircraft has the paint scheme of “Number 810,” an aircraft that never made it home. Though 810 came from the factory bare metal, crewmen painted it in the field. They were under such pressure to get the plane flying combat missions immediately, that they never got around to painting the intricate “greenhouse” nose and cockpit areas on the aircraft.
The fourth and final wreck used to restore the FHC plane came from another swamp.
This 724th Air Attack Regiment aircraft was reported missing on February 1, 1944, in the area of Maevo–Alushkovo. In the 1950s, the wreck was discovered along with the body of the gunner, Sgt. Alexey Alexandrovich Titov. Searchers at that time thought Titov was the pilot of a one-man fighter aircraft, and the wreck stayed undisturbed until researchers uncovered the fact that Titov was actually part of an Il-2 pilot and gunner team.
Much later, Lt. Alexander Sabirovich Sabdarov, the pilot, and more of the wrecked
aircraft were recovered from the long-ignored crash site. Restorers were able to recover parts of the plane’s armored fuselage and armored cowlings from the wreck. The cowlings still showed bullet holes from combat that took place decades before.
A specialist firm in Novosibirsk, Russia, called Retro Avia Tech Ltd. collected the parts from each of these original Il-2 aircraft. The company’s head, Boris Osentinsky, is well known in the warbird community for past restorations including I-16 and MiG-3 fighter
aircraft. The idea of creating an Il-2 restoration was conceived in the early 2000s and a contract was signed with the FHC in 2005.
The original parts, acquired from the wrecks, were combined with new-build wooden
parts, made from birch and pine, manufactured from plywood produced in Finland.
It has been decades since anyone has been able to get an Il-2 engine, the Mikulin AM-
38F, to function. So, the FHC aircraft flies with a left-turning Allison V-1710-113 engine from a P-38 Lighting fighter producing 1,475-horsepower.
The plane is painted in the colors of Air Marshal Alexander Efimov of the 298th Air
Division, who flew Il-2s in combat during World War II and was twice-awarded Hero of
the Soviet Union. Efimov is known not only for destroying 126 enemy tanks, but also for engaging flying German aircraft with his heavy attack plane. When Germany surrendered, he had flown 288 combat missions and destroyed seven enemy planes in air-to-air combat.
Efimov passed away in Moscow in 2012.
The plane made its maiden flight in Russia in late September of 2011. Later, the plane was returned to Samara (formerly Kuybyshev) and was flown in a parade on November 7,
2011. This celebration came exactly seventy years after Red Army parades in both
Moscow and Kuybyshev during World War II.
After the celebration in Russia, the plane travelled by ship to the United States. The plane flew for the first time in the United States with Steve Hinton at the controls on August 9, 2012. The FHC Il-2 is the only example of a flyable Shturmovik in the world today.
The planes that would become the B-26 and B-25 twin-engine medium bombers both
evolved from a specification circulated by the army air corps in March 1938. Though
never as good-looking or speedy as the Martin B-26, North American Aviation’s (NAA)
B-25 outlasted its counterpart and was considered by many an archetypal American
warplane.
A pair of B-25s cruises toward a target in the skies over Italy. The B-25 was known to be tough. The plane’s double tail not only offered stability on bomb runs, it allowed a Mitchell to return home even if one vertical was completely blown off by ground fire.
Like a trusty tool, good looks do not always symbolize a plane’s value. However, first versions of NAA’s bomber were hideous. The NA-40 was a boxy-looking aircraft with a
deep fuselage, twin tails, and a long, thin cockpit. Though the prototype was destroyed in a non-fatal crash during evaluation, the Army asked North American to continue
development—with a few changes.
The new plane, called NA-62, had a wider fuselage, relocated wings, and new engines,
but retained the distinctive double tail of the earlier model. Dual tails allowed the aircraft to be more stable and maneuverable at low speeds, because the rudders were directly aft of the engines. The double tails also provided redundancy should one vertical get damaged in combat.
The new version of the aircraft was accepted by the army while it was still yet to be
built or flown. The order for 184 aircraft came ten days after Germany invaded Poland in 1939. First versions of the B-25 had wings that slanted upward, described by aeronautical engineers as dihedral. On simulated bomb runs, the plane was slightly less stable than army evaluators wanted, so designers landed on the B-25’s distinctive “gull wing” front profile. NAA designers kept the dihedral angle from the fuselage to the engines, but
reduced the angle in the outboard wing.
The FHC’s North American B-25J Mitchell was a Canadian fire bomber—equipped to drop water on forest fires—before it was restored. Today it flies in the scheme of aircraft 810 of the 490th Bomb Squadron, the “Burma Bridge Busters.”
Soon, the B-25 was given the nickname “Mitchell,” in honor of William “Billy”
Mitchell, an army general who was a strong proponent of air power in the 1920s and
beyond. The B-25 Mitchell was an incredibly versatile plane. When war began for the
United States, B-25s were in service almost everywhere—the Pacific, Africa, Alaska, and Europe with the RAF. Later in the war, the B-25 would serve with many other Allied
nations including Australia, Russia, China, and the Netherlands.
Perhaps the most famous example of the Mitchell’s ability to “do anything” came early
in the war when Lt. Col. James “Jimmy” Doolittle led a group of sixteen of the big
bombers off the decks of the aircraft carrier USS Hornet near Japan in April 1942.
Whereas the faster B-26 most often flew with army air forces units based in England,
the versatile and tough B-25 was the medium bomber of choice in rougher environs such
as North Africa, the Pacific, and China-Burma-India. The valuable and useful plane soon took on new roles. The navy used them as patrol bombers, another version was packed
with cameras for photo missions, and others were used as training planes and transports.
Perhaps the most notable change in roles for the B-25 came when crews began to use
them as attack planes. An arsenal of machine guns could be carried in the nose and
forward fuselage. For example, the FHC B-25 can bring to bear nine .50-caliber forward-facing machine guns on a ground target. In the Pacific and China-Burma-India, B-25s
blasted enemy ships, bridges, and airfields with this overwhelming firepower. One version of the aircraft even carried a heavy 75mm gun in the nose.
After a long trip from southern California, the FHC’s Mitchell touches down at Paine Field. A pair of flyers ferried the plane from the restoration shop to its permanent home in 2011. The arrival of the biggest and most complex World War II aircraft in the collection was followed up with a large crate filled with spare parts and a bevy of vintage manuals.
The FHC’s B-25J is fully restored to its World War II configuration, including a full complement of equipment in the cockpit.
On the left is the pilot’s N-3C gunsight along with an old style ring and bead sight. On the right, the co-pilot, operating as the bomber’s navigator, used the plane’s astrocompass. Over his right ear is the B-25’s gun camera.
Crawling through a small tunnel gave flyers access to the B-25’s greenhouse nose. The cramped space is filled with guns, ammunition boxes and feeds, oxygen bottle, armor, and the plane’s bomb sight.
They say you can tell whether a B-25 flyer was a pilot or co-pilot by finding out which one of his ears no longer works. The plane’s prop blades whirl right outside the cockpit window and the Mitchell’s notoriously loud “short stack” exhaust system surrounds the bomber’s two Cyclone engines just a few feet away.
Part of the B-25’s defensive firepower was its tail and top turrets. Each unit was equipped with a pair of .50-caliber machine guns. The tail was powered by the plane’s hydraulic system while the upper turret used electrical motors. The top turret had automatic trigger cut-offs that kept the guns from shooting through the Mitchell’s spinning propellers or into its twin vertical tails.
The FHC B-25J was built in Kansas City and accepted by the army air forces on
December 28, 1944. Two days later, it was delivered to the Air Transport Command in
Mobile, Alabama. The plane was then transferred to the Air Material Command at South
Plains, Texas in March 1945. In July 1947, it was moved to Robins Air Force Base in
Georgia.
Unlike other World War II aircraft that were scrapped at the end of the war, the B-25
continued to be operated by both military units, like the Air National Guard, and civilian operators—a testament to the versatility of the plane’s design. The FHC B-25 was one of 117 to be modified by the Aircraft Division of Hughes Tool Company in Culver City,
California for use as radar fighter control trainers in 1951. Modifications included the installation of the E-1 fire control system in the bomb bay, a nose mounted radome, and the addition of an astrodome in the navigator’s area.
Now designated a TB-25K, the aircraft was provided to the Royal Canadian Air Force
(RCAF) in November 1951 under the Mutual Defense Assistance program. The plane’s
period with the RCAF included training of fighter backseaters to operate radar systems.
The plane served in Ontario, Alberta, and Manitoba for nearly ten years.
The B-25’s bomb bay is fully-equipped and operational. A panel in the plane’s nose controls the sequence and timing of the bomb release mechanisms installed in the belly of the aircraft. A common load for the Mitchell during World War II was six 500-pound bombs.
WINGED SKULL
The distinctive emblem of the 490th Bomb Squadron adorns both sides of the nose of
the FHC B-25J. The artwork was developed in the early 1930s by army engineer
Eugene Clay and painted on the nose of a Lockheed Hudson ferried into the Pacific by
Col. James A. Philpott, the first commander of the 490th. The image, always with a
fearsome skull and a set of Army Air Corps pilot’s wings in a white and black circle,
was used throughout World War II but was never officially accepted by the Army Air
Forces as the emblem of the “Burma Bridge Busters.”
By November 1961, the plane was declared surplus and transferred to Crown Assets
Disposal Corporation for sale. In 1962 or 1963, Cascade Drilling Company of Alberta
purchased the aircraft and converted it to a water bomber. The FHC B-25 was reportedly the first to be converted in Canada for firefighting. Due to a series of B-25 tanker crashes in the United States and a US Fire Service ruling excluding the B-25 from contracts after 1962, Cascade failed to generate any business.
Cascade sold the aircraft to Air Spray Ltd. of Edmonton, Alberta, in 1964 and it was
sold again in 1967 to Northwestern Air Lease Ltd. With Northwestern, the B-25 fought
fires in all the western provinces of Canada. Northwestern management sold all of their B-
25s to G&M Air Lease Ltd. of St. Albert, Alberta, in 1981.
The FHC B-25 was flown as a fire tanker into the 1990s until the Canadian government
decided to contract for other types of aircraft. The plane was removed from the register and exported to the United States on June 19, 1995.
The FHC purchased the plane in late 1998 and moved it to Aero Trader in Chino,
California—a company well known for Mitchell bomber restorations. Aero Trader worked
to convert the plane to its wartime configuration and locate and reinstall all of its long-lost equipment. The plane became one of the most accurately-restored World War II bombers
in the world and is complete with guns, ammunition boxes and chutes, bomb site, oxygen bottles, armor plate, rescue equipment, astrocompass, and a thousand other items worked into a cramped, combat-era bomber interior. The aircraft was finished in 2011 and flown to Everett in June of that year.
Since the FHC B-25 never saw combat, staffers chose to pick the paint scheme of an
aircraft that never came home. “Number 810” of the 490th Bomb Squadron, nicknamed
the “Burma Bridge Busters,” flew 116 missions in the China-Burma-India Theater during
World War II. This veteran aircraft was lost in combat on May 30, 1945, when it crashed while attacking Sincheng Bridge in China.
Outside the FHC’s main hangar, mechanics rattle the windows with a thundering engine run. Unlike B-25s that have been modified to quiet the engines and provide carburetor heat, the FHC’s bomber has simple, loud, World War II-era “short stack”
exhausts.