Tyler

By ADAM RUSSELL
Staff Writer

For the core group that toils, drilling rivets, shaping metal and painting vintage aircraft for the Historical Aviation Memorial Museum, the 100 by 130 foot hangar just off Dixie Drive is part playground, part workshop.

It's a hobby, says HAMM Maintenance Chief John Mustard. That's the play part. The work that goes into renovating each aircraft to make it available for static display for thousands of visitors to ooh and ah at, or maybe reminisce about, can be staggering.

The FJ-4 Fury on display, the first plane renovated, took two-and-a-half years and around 3,500 man-hours to complete, restorer Tim Spence said. Spence logged around 1,500 hours himself.

"It starts out as fun, then becomes work and then we have fun. It's back and forth," Spence said.

The crews bake in the heat of summer and run heaters near workspaces to fight the chill of winter.

On Saturday Mustard, Spence and Bob Strong put in a few more volunteered hours giving a Sikorsky HO4-1 an extreme makeover. Around 200 rivets were drilled out in a five foot by two foot panel of sheet-metal that had deteriorated beyond saving. There are many, many more rivets to go.

But it is a labor of love and the pride in workmanship is present in Mustard's voice as he goes over the list of planes HAMM volunteers have restored over the years. Mustard counts eight.

Some took longer than others. One plane might have very little damage and take only a month, two tops, Mustard said. Then there are the projects.

Mustard expects the Sikorsky will take six months of the three to five man crew's Wednesday's and Saturdays before it is ready for viewing.

Next to the Sikorsky sits a project. A behemoth, but an important one.

The remnants of a Catalina PBY, HAMM's mascot, sits idly, its bare metal showing, much of it punched with holes by salt water and time. Part of the plane's 104 foot wing section sits in front of the hangar separated from its body.

"Minimum two years," Mustard said looking at the skeletal wingspan. "Probably more like four depending on how many people can work on it."

The projects are all important to the museum and the PBY's completion will be no exception.

HAMM's roots are tied to the PBY by tragedy. In 1984, seven members of the Lone Star Wing of the Confederate Air Force died when the PBY they were flying in crashed in Matagorda Bay.

The Historical Aviation Memorial Foundation was created to remember the dead and preserve the history of aviators and the machines they fly. The foundation later created a museum and from the beginning Robert "Bob" Layton has been there.

On July 17, the HAMM Board of Directors unanimously voted to name the hangar, where the volunteers create the museum's static display, after Layton for his tireless effort on behalf of the museum.

Spence said after the Fury arrived at the newly built hangar in 2002 it sat for two months without a single sheet of metal being touched. The board began to reconsider the project and prepared to contact the Navy and return the plane.

If the call had been made the HAMM would have probably never received another military aircraft again, he said. Layton overrode the board and put Spence in charge of the renovation.

"If it wasn't for him the planes wouldn't be here," Spence said.

HAMM Communications Director Carolyn Verver said Layton's commitment both as a fundraiser and spokesperson has been incredible. Mustard said Layton is responsible for much of HAMM's facilities.

"There's been a lot of time and effort from Bob," Verver said.

On August 23 during a ceremony starting at 10 a.m. the board will officially rename the hangar where all the physical work is done for the museum. A sign has been commissioned and will go above the sliding doors designating it, "ROBERT "BOB" LAYTON JR. HANGAR," Ms. Verver said.

There have been many volunteers and donors that have made the HAMM what it has become, Mustard said, and Layton is a big reason it continues. Museum renovations save these historic aircraft. Spence said the planes would fade away without the museum.

"If it wasn't for the museum these planes would just deteriorate until they would have to be taken away as scrap," Spence said.

HARD WORK: Bob Strong (right) and John Mustard sand down sheet metal during an aircraft restoration project on Saturday at Tyler Pounds Regional Airport in Tyler. The two aircraft in the background are a PBY 5A seaplane (right) and a HO4 S1 Sikorsky helicopter.
(Staff Photo By Mark Roberts)