A privately owned P-40 Warkhawk under restoration at WestPac on May 20. This airplane will be returned to flying condition but likely won't join the museum's collection.
As Americans look back and remember the men and women who have died in service to the country, volunteers and employees at WestPac Restorations and the National Museum of World War II Aviation see them every day in the aircraft they keep alive.
And the museum will soon expand to keep even more memories of veterans and warbirds, big and small, alive. Space is at a premium as WestPac, owned by museum President and CEO Bill Klaers, restores more aircraft that find a home at the museum.
The project to expand the museum has been ongoing for several years, but now the museum is close to awarding a contract for constructing the second hangar.
"We had five companies bid on it, we've eliminated three and we're down to the last two. ... I'm thinking we'll do a grand opening in August of next year," he said. "(The new building is) a mirror. The door will now open to the airport, so that will allow us now to have airplanes come down like B-29s and B-17s that are traveling."
While more space for more airplanes is great, Klaers is also attempting to build a third building, an 86,000-square-foot Aviation Hall that will be a facility that will bring more space for exhibits, education and can serve as a large events center.
Klaers called the aviation hall "a function of money," as it will take a significant amount of it to make the hall a reality. But for the time being, the museum is home to several unique, air-worthy airplanes, setting it apart from other museums in Pueblo and Denver.
Several aircraft are veterans, having flown in combat during World War II and the Vietnam War. Two aircraft, the P-38 Lightning and the AD-5 Skyraider, were reunited with their pilots after being buried in the New Guinea mud and fleeing the fall of Saigon, respectively.
The Lightning is a sleek aircraft, a rarity for twin-engine designs, and even on the ground looks fast. It was a game changer for many pilots fighting against the Imperial Japanese military in the South Pacific, completely outperforming the previous P-39 Airacobras and P-40 Warhawks.
And its pilot, Frank Royal, just so happened to live in Colorado Springs. Royal, 101 years old at the time, promised Klaers that he'd stay alive long enough to see the aircraft fly once more.
"To find something like this, then bring it back and reunite the pilot and the airplane is life-changing for a person," Klaers said. "When we got ready to go ... (Frank) walked over, went up the air stair door, climbed up to the front (of a Cessna 421), jumped in the right seat and said, 'Come on, let's go. I'm ready to go.'
"It was incredible."
The three aircraft -- Royal's P-38, the Cessna and Klaers' B-25 Mitchell -- took to the sky.
His final mission accomplished, Royal passed away a month later.
The P-38, known to museum staff as White 33 for the large white 33 painted on the nose, has possibly the most extensive combat history of any airplane at the museum. It was flown by the Army Air Force's first double ace, Capt. Kenneth Sparks, who shot down two Japanese aircraft with it. The second aircraft came at Sparks head-on.
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The Japanese plane hit Sparks' wing, slicing through it, and crashed. Sparks returned to base, but the aircraft, severely damaged, was ultimately scrapped at Finschhafen Airfield in New Guinea.
Decades later it was pulled from the mud and saltwater-infused air and taken to Colorado Springs, where it was restored beginning in 2017.
"Every day I walk by it, look at it and say, 'I can't believe we restored that and reused 45% of the original parts," Klaers said. "I don't want to build another P-38 ... It's really the most complex airplane I've ever worked on."
WestPac is also in the process of restoring several aircraft. An online list includes a pair of F6F Hellcats, the most successful naval fighter of World War II, a P-47D and a pair of P-40s currently in the shop.
The P-40 is an oft-forgotten aircraft of World War II, though it did much to hold the line in the Pacific Theater. It was the plane that flew against Japanese attackers at Pearl Harbor and helped keep Australian skies free from the wrath of the expansionist empire. The famed Flying Tigers flew the P-40 and it was one of the aircraft used by the Tuskegee Airmen.
Klaers wants to see the P-40 project pushed through so that it can be represented in the museum, but his true passion project is the P-47 Razorback.
"I think that I can probably do another six, seven years. ... I work every day. I don't just run the museum and run this business. I work in the shop," he said. "Let's push this P-40 through. ... (Building) a Razorback, combat war veteran, that's going to be probably a four-year project, maybe five."
So much depends on costs, however. Fortunately, Klaers said a lot of people are working on P-40s, so should a need for a part come up, he has sources. Klaers got the most excited talking about an ongoing excavation in New Guinea.
He was tight-lipped on what aircraft the team may be excavating, but did let on that it would be one of only two in the world known to have survived World War II.
In the meantime, Klaers is focusing on completing existing projects in front of him and keeping his own B-25 Mitchell ship shape. A far cry from its previous life, the plane, nicknamed "In the Mood" after the famous song, used to be the worst warbird on the airshow circuit.
"It never made it. If it did make it, it never flew because it had problems," he said. "I had a whole team of guys in my shop, and we just worked on it on the weekend, and then we got it to where it was probably one of the more reliable airplanes."
Klaers' and his teams' commitment to restoration is on full display for every guest of the museum. WestPac recently finished restoration on an SB2C Helldiver, which should take to the Pikes Peak region's skies over the course of the summer.
"If you're not here to educate and inspire, then you're here for the wrong reasons. ... That's the reason that we do what we do," Klaers said.
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