Colorado Springs man gets happy reunion with World War II plane he piloted
A worker at Westpac Restorations in Colorado Springs summed it up more succinctly while putting the finishing touches on a World War II Lockheed P-38 Lightning.
“That’s Superman,” he said, pointing to 100 year-old Frank Royal who was observing restorations of the twin-engine fighter. “This is his cape.”
It was more than a cape for Royal. In New Guinea in 1942, that plane, now called White 33, was a lifeline. The roar of its twin 12-cylinder motors gave him confidence that he could do his job and survive.
“It was like music,” Royal said this week after reuniting with the plane he flew in World War II.
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The P-38 was scrapped and buried in Papua New Guinea after a World War II combat incident that came after Royal had gone home to a job at the newly-built Pentagon.
Generations later, the World War II trash was dug up as buried treasure and shipped to Colorado for repair at Westpac, where owner Bill Klaers and his team have become the nation’s most renowned restorers of World War II planes.
Through luck or fate, Royal came to visit Westpac and the adjacent National Museum of World War II Aviation. He told Klaers he had flown P-38s in the Pacific. After talking, the two realized that Royal had flown the plane Westpac was restoring.
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“We swear that Lockheed engineers were space aliens,” Klaers said as he looked over White 33…
It’s amazing that a plane that had been buried as trash is now on the verge of flying again, and that its original (in-theatre) pilot – an ‘old man’ of 27 at the time – is still around to see it.
Thank you, this is awesome.
kopek
August 18, 2015, 1:30pm
3
Dug out of ice or out of the ground, the P-38 seems like one that can almost always be made to fly again.
Absolutely Awesome. Thanks
LSLGuy
August 18, 2015, 4:33pm
5
Great story. Thanks. And now I have a new road trip to make: http://www.worldwariiaviation.org/