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Here's the complete article Tulio!

Posted by bdk on Fri Apr 19, 2002 01:42:57 PM

In reply top Rosie the Riveter posted by Tulio on Fri Apr 19, 2002 03:03:51 AM

This story was published in West Post on Thursday, April 18, 2002.

Women restore WWII plane to deliver supplies to remote areas

By Marianna Riley
Of The Post-Dispatch

There's always a lot going on at the Wings of Hope Hangar at Spirit of St. Louis Airport in Chesterfield, where volunteers work every day but Sunday to restore old planes to fly humanitarian missions to remote corners of the world.

But these days on Saturdays, there's an extra flurry of activity created by the presence of almost two dozen 21st century Rosie the Riveters.

The women, who range in age from 11 to 89, are helping to rebuild an old C-47, the World War II-era plane from which paratroopers jumped into small towns just beyond the beaches of Normandy on D-Day.



The sky diver

It's also the type of plane from which Maxine Reisenleiter's late husband, Lee Reiseleiter, jumped on that fateful day, June 6, 1944.

Maxine Reisenleiter, 78, of Brentwood, is one of six women hard at work with the crew that is restoring the plane on a recent Saturday morning. She also was the only one on the Rosie the Riveter crew who is not a pilot.

Reisenleiter, however, is a sky diver. She took her first jump as a sort of memorial in honor of her late husband's birthday and got hooked on the activity. And she volunteered for this Wings of Hope project because of her interest in the C-47.

The other women volunteers belong to one of two women's aviation groups. One is the Ninety Nines, founded in 1929 by Amelia Earhart, and the other is Women With Wings, the area chapter of Women in Aviation International.

The plane was built in 1942. It was wrecked and reassembled in April 1944. After the war, it was reconfigured as a DC-3 and used as a cargo freight hauler, principally in Egypt and other parts of North Africa.

It didn't fly many paratrooper missions after D-Day but it once was used to evacuate about 100 people. A jeep can be driven through its double-wide doors.



Making it smooth

For several weeks, the women have been busy fitting new fabric covers to the aircraft's wings. On this day, they were hard at work sanding and smoothing the tightly fitted dacron and polyester surfaces on the ailerons (the parts of the wing that control the roll of the aircraft) as well as the elevators and rudders, readying them for yet another coat of dope, a glue-like coating that seals and waterproofs the fabric.

Rosie the Riveter crew chief Barbara Hughes, 61, of Kimmswick, demonstrated a tiny bubble that was caused by an earlier coat of glue. "Air will catch in these little areas if we don't fix them," said Hughes, rubbing the bubble lightly with some wet sandpaper and running her fingers along the surface of the fabric.

"All these edges must be glued down and secured; that's what I'm doing," she explained.

With eight coats of silver paint that had been sanded and glued between each coat, the ailerons and rudders already felt more like lightweight metal than fabric.

Four more coats would be applied, said John Marshall, a volunteer with Wings of Hope who also runs the paint shop for Thunder Aviation and is in charge of the painting and fabric work on the C-47.



A ride they deserve

The women have been in on each step of this $172,000-restoration since last July and are looking forward to taking a ride in the plane when it is finished. It's a ride they know they deserve.

They helped pull out each of the 1,400-pound engines and helped rebuild them. And they removed all the old fabric on the plane before beginning the tedious and labor-intensive job of putting on the new.

Proudly they point to the thousands and thousands of meticulous stitches they made by using long needles and waxed thread to attach the fabric to the metal ribs. The stitches were an inch apart, and each was tied with a modified seine knot, a fisherman's knot that won't slip.

Marshall said he once handled such a project alone. It took him 3 1/2 years.

"There were a billion stitches," said Jan Pocock, 72, of Ballwin, perhaps taking just a little license. She was running her hand along the wing's surfaces, feeling for the tiny air bubbles, sanding with one hand and wiping clean the surface with the other.

The arduous process of building up with taping and glue after the stitching was still fresh in her memory. "We'd go home, high on glue," she said, her eyes twinkling.



Wasps and petrified eggs

But before all that, the women first had to remove the old fabric, another tedious job, and what surprises were in store! They found nests of bees, wasps and birds. Even some petrified bird eggs. In addition, all the thousands of old rivets had to come out and then go through a chemical wash to get all the old paint and glue off.

The restoration has meant hours of work, most of it standing and bent over in unusual positions. "I go home to a hot tub," laughed Lynn Crofoot, of Pacific. At 48, she's the baby of this particular group.

They laughed when Jean Murry, 72, of Chesterfield, insisted, "We're all 39."

Bob Masters, the crew chief on the plane, said the women on the Rosie the Riveter project had provided the equivalent of at least $12,000 worth of work.

The Rosie the Riveters aren't the only ones working on the old plane. Wings of Hope volunteers spend at least five days a week on it, Masters said.

Despite its illustrious career, the plane is not being restored as a museum piece but as a tractor-trailer of the skyways to go all over the world carrying medical supplies and other materials to the 130 locations where Wings of Hope has placed planes.

The target date for its completion is June 1. It's already booked for the entire summer, says Doug Clements, executive director of Wings of Hope. Its destinations include El Salvador, Guyana, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela.



A joint project

The restoration is a joint project with another charity called Remote Area Medical or RAM, whose officials asked Wings of Hope to restore the plane. RAM's executive director and the regular pilot of this plane is Stan Brock, formerly co-host with the late Marlin Perkins of the popular television show "Wild Kingdom."

Reisenleiter is trim, fit and energetic with a becoming cap of snow white hair. She's happy to take a visitor on a little tour of the plane's interior. It's almost as if she'd been there herself and it seems clear that the spirit of her late husband is informing her.

"The benches came to about here; see where those bolts are," she said, indicating a level where people with good knees could half-sit, half crouch. The original seat belts still were in place.

"Here's where the line was," she said, reaching up to the low ceiling. "It was called a static line. The paratroopers would be attached to it when they jumped, and at a certain point it pulled the chute open and released it. You know, they were so loaded with equipment - guns and ammunition - that they didn't have a free hand to release their parachute.

"The jump master sat here - she pointed to a spot nearest the door - and every 10 seconds he'd tap 'em on the leg and they'd jump."

A new static line will be installed, she says. Instead of people, it will release medical supplies, which will be dropped through the door the paratroopers used.

"You know, I'd like to think my husband jumped out of this plane," said Reisenleiter, glancing back over her shoulder as she walked back to the hangar.



====================

Wings of Hope

Wings of Hope is an all-volunteer charity formed to reach people in isolated regions of the world by using small airplanes. The work includes the fabrication and refurbishment of aircraft for rugged bush use.

The operations include transporting doctors, teachers, supplies and other necessities to help people in these areas reach a level of self-sufficiency. The organization has supplied and continues to maintain 130 aircraft worldwide. The organization was founded in 1962 and is headquartered at Spirit of St. Louis Airport in Chesterfield.

Help wanted: Wings of Hope is looking for a sponsor for a World War II-era C-47 restoration. A one-time expenditure of $175,000 would pay for the restoration and a custom paint job with the sponsor's choice of logos. Subsequent operational expenses will be paid by Wings of Hope and Remote Area Medical.

Reporter Marianna Riley:

E-mail: mriley@post-dispatch.com

Phone: 314-849-4131




Published in West Post on Thursday, April 18, 2002.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper article

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