Ford Tri-Motor restoration finally nearing completion

PORT CLINTON — A project that has gone on for about two decades — rebuilding a Ford Tri-Motor destroyed in a crash — seems likely to finally come in for a landing in the next two years. Visitors to Liberty Aviation Museum can track the progress of the Ford Tri-Motor Foundation's efforts. Visitors will see, for example, that only stubby partial wings extend from the fuselage. But if they look closely, they will see that two wings have been fully assembled and are ready to be attached to the stubs. That's an example of how far the work has advanced, said Jody Brausch, a Huron resident and the president of the Ford Tri-Motor Foundation. All of the plane's major components have been put together, so the rest of the work will largely consist of assembling those pieces into a completed aircraft. About $2.1 million has been spent so far on the project, which depends upon fundraising and tax-deductible contributions. About 12 volunteers, many of them skilled airplane mechanics, work regularly on the project. Brausch estimates that the work of having a flyable aircraft will be done by 2024, or maybe even a bit sooner. "Our goal is to do living history rides, take people for rides on the weekends," Brausch said. The ongoing work is one of the exhibits at the museum, which is located at Erie-Ottawa International Airport near Port Clinton. The partially-assembled airplane sits in one of the museum's hangars, next to the giant wingspan of one of the museum's latest acquisitions, a vintage PBY Catalina flying boat. Liberty Aviation Museum opened in 2012 with a big hangar and a diner. Since then, the museum has expanded and built up its exhibits, becoming one of the most impressive aviation museums in Ohio. The Ford Tri-Motor project is in a second hangar which opened in 2015. When the plane is finished it will continue to be owned by the foundation, and it will remain on the airport property. Brausch and the project's chief mechanic, Port Clinton resident Doug Moore, say that out of about 200 Tri-Motor aircraft made by Ford, only five flyable airplanes are left. One of them is the City of Port Clinton, which Liberty Aviation Museum owns. Efforts by the foundation to restore the plane began in 2008, when the foundation was incorporated and received nonprofit status, although work by volunteers in the area actually began in 2004. Getting the vintage plane in the air has taken longer than foundation members expected. "We're about eight years behind," said Moore, who said that in 2011, it was estimated the plane would be completed in five years. For a while, it was difficult to find enough skilled volunteers. While that's improved, the foundation remains interested in help from former Air Force personnel with experience in working on airframes. "Money has been a constraint," Brausch said. "There have been times we reached into our own pockets." Most of the parts for the plane are made by Moore. "We reverse engineer it, off of original parts," he said. But specialized parts of the plane are supplied by others. The three engines, for example, will be from Tulsa Aircraft Engines Inc., a shop in Tulsa that specializes in overhauling Pratt & Whitney engines. The propellers are being purchased from a company in Germany. In some cases, in hidden ways, authenticity is being compromised. The airplane does not have 1929 vacuum tube radios for example; underneath the authentic instrument panel, it will be equipped with modern electronics. "It will look original. It will be all state-of-the-art equipment," Brausch said. "We want a safe, flyable airplane," Moore said. The Ford Tri-Motor, easily recognizable for having one engine in the nose and two others in the wings, played a romantic role in U.S. and local aviation history. The legendary Tin Goose built by Henry Ford flew passengers for early versions of United and TWA. Transcontinental Air Transport, a 1929 air-rail hybrid that was the first attempt to use fast air travel to connect Los Angeles to New York, used the aircraft; passengers leaving a train that ran through Cleveland would board the plane in Columbus to head west. Admiral Richard Byrd flew over the South Pole with a Tri-Motor. And Island Airlines for decades flew the plane from Port Clinton to the Lake Erie islands. The plane the foundation is restoring came off Ford's assembly line in Dearborn, Michigan in 1929 and became the first aircraft owned by AeroMexico, Mexico's national airline. Later owners included Pan Am and a Cuban airline. Island Airways flew it from 1946 to 1952 from Port Clinton to Put-in-Bay. It wound up in the hands of a flying service in Montana; the plane crashed when a wing touched the ground. Maurice Hovious, an aircraft repair and restoration specialist, bought salvage rights for the wreck, loaded it on a truck, and brought it back to Kalamazoo, Michigan. Hovious agreed to let a group in Port Clinton restore the plane, and in 2004, restoration work began in a hangar at Erie-Ottawa International Airport, with the foundation taking over in 2008. In 2012, Liberty Aviation Museum began providing hangar space for the project. Anyone who wants to donate money to aid the effort or find out more can visit the foundation's website, restoretheford.org. And on August 5, rides are being offered on the museum's Ford Tri-Motor. The cost is $85 and details are available at the museum's Facebook page.