American Aero Services, owned by Gary and Carole Norville, is located in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, 20 minutes south of Daytona Beach. Since its inception in 1981 the facility has restored and maintained various types of warbirds. Many of American Aero’s restorations have become award winners at air shows including Oskosh and Sun-n-Fun.

Since November 1991 American Aero has maintained Boeing B-17G Nine-o-Nine. The B-17 comes in each year for its annual inspection and year-end maintenance, which is conducted over a period of two to three months commencing in November. While down for its annual inspection the aircraft has everything from minor repairs and engine changes to sheet metal and systems overhauled.

In July 1994 the B-17 came in before its scheduled winter maintenance due to a problem with contaminated fuel purchased in California. Fearing an emergency airworthiness directive from the F.A.A. against the aircraft engines that obtained this fuel, the bomber returned to Florida early from its national tour.

All engines, fuel and oil tanks, accessories and hoses were removed and overhauled at the request of the petroleum company.

During this project it was decided that American Aero should pull the wings from the fuselage and inspect the spar terminal ends for cracks and corrosion.

Gary Norville takes up the story “We used a crane to lift the B-17 and then retracted the main gear, setting it down on 24 inch jacks and cradles. Once this was accomplished we removed the outer wing panels and main wing panels. All eight terminal ends were removed and inspected. The terminal ends were then cleaned, NDT’d, nickel plated and baked to relieve hydrogen cracks using visual and x-ray inspection. No damage was found in the spar or terminal ends and they were re-assembled.”

The wings were re-installed and once again the B-17 was back on its main gear. In January 1995 the project was complete and Nine-o-Nine was ready to commence its next nation-wide tour. An entire photograph album was created to document what was found and repaired to maybe help other B-17
 Co-op members if they were faced with the same project.

March 1993 saw a new project aircraft delivered to American Aero Services  for restoration for The Collings Foundation. One that would present many new challenges to the company and one that would see them reach even higher standards of  attention to detail in their restoration work. Vought F4U-5NL Corsair Bu 124692 was delivered basically as a rough fuselage on a center section and gear, two outer wings, a vertical, horizontal, rudder, plus several boxes of unoverhauled systems parts. So how did American Aero Services tackle this one? Gary takes up the story again “We started with a fuselage and cockpit  restoration. The cockpit sheet metal closeouts and shelves were fabricated and installed. The entire hydraulics system was fabricated and replumbed by Vince Santorelli. One of the big Challenges was that we only had a few horizontal stabilizer ribs and old skins. The original dash 5 horizontals were made with aluminum ribs and the surfaces were metallite (Parquet balsa sandwiched between two thin pieces of aluminum). These were undesirable due to unavailability of materials and ease of damage following restoration. With help from Nelson Ezell we obtained F4U-4 horizontals blueprints and Jeff Mitchell fabricated and assembled new ribs, spars and skins.”

Another obstacle facing the team was a missing port oil cooler shoulder. “The port and starboard were mirror image QEC’s for ease of change if damaged. We disassembled the right hand shoulder and fabricated mirror image parts to build up a left-hand shoulder assembly. Both outer wing panels were reskinned from the ammunition bay doors to the wing butts and installed, the right hand panel had the original radar pod installed” adds Gary.

The cockpit was laid out and restored, as it was originally when it served as a night fighter with Navy Composite Squadron VC-3. So what detailing made the Corsair so special? “The cockpit interior was flat black with all the original type instruments overhauled. Our only modern instruments consisted of a King HSI and VOR head that was located in the upper center of the instrument panel. These could be hidden under a removable radarscope head while on static display at airshows. The interior flash hiders, gunsight and armament control panels were installed on top of the glare shield. The modern avionics were installed in the right hand shelf by Avionics Installations and could also be hidden with a plate carrying original radio heads”.

Much research was conducted so the plane was authentically restored and painted in the markings it carried while flying 77 hours with VC-3 aboard the U.S.S. Essex during the Korean War. At the business end an R-2800-26WD from Rudy Blakey was installed and a custom induction system fabricated to accommodate the down draft carburetor. A pre-oiling system was installed along with a Halon fire extinguisher system concentration on the power and accessory sections. All the fuel, oil and hydraulic lines were fire shielded.

After various ground checks leading up to numerous engine runs, and consequently checking oil screens and sumps, Tom Crevasse flew the beautiful Corsair for the first time in 1997.                     

Sadly, during a photo flight on 4^th April 1997 with Robert Collings Jr. as pilot a miscalculation in fuel consumption lead to the Corsair ditching in the ocean two miles South East of New Smyrna Beach – in 65 feet of water. Rob made an excellent  ‘dead stick’ landing which spared  the plane from a broken fuselage and allowed him abut 30 seconds to scramble out of the plane before it sank. Very fortunately a fishing boat was nearby to come to the rescue. After nine days underwater the Corsair was raised to a barge and shipped back to dry land.

The aircraft was towed back to the hangar and the team removed all the control surfaces, wings, cowls and anything else that could be unscrewed or unbolted and pressure washed everything. On completion all that remained was the fuselage sitting on its center section and gear. All the cowling, wings, control surfaces etc. were placed in pools behind the hangar for soaking and daily water changes. The fuselage was pressure washed again and covered in Corrosion X by Bootstrap Aircraft’s Craig McBurney.

Currently the dash 5 is under rebuild again at American Aero. How had the aircraft fared? Both outer wing panels suffered severe damage along with the trailing edges of the center section. With the flaps being lowered during ditching the hydraulic action of the water tore them from the center section. The right hand outer wing panel sustained heavy damage when the radome tore off, blowing out the last four feet of spar. A new spar, ribs and skins were fabricated and at this point both outer wing panels are 90% complete. Work is commencing on the centersection wing butts and trailing edge structure, with flap gap doors and drives being fabricated and installed. The saltwater had not adversely affected the aluminum or steel with corrosion due to the prep and prime of the metal from Chance Vought  and the first restoration, the magnesium parts however were a total loss. All the magnesium parts have been replaced with other serviceable parts or machined new ones from aluminum. The corsair should be back to its original configuration in one to two years.

Currently the shop maintains an array of other aircraft from undertaking structural sheet metal repairs on Continental Airlines DC-3A to performing winter annual maintenance on Jim Read’s dash 5 Corsair. A recent project has been installing a leading edge gun kit on his P-51D Mustang Excalibur. The shop has six full time mechanics, three of them with Inspection Authorizations undertaking current projects. Gary praises all the mechanics in the shop, saying “If it wasn’t for them and the way they work together none of this would be possible”. All facets of restoration are done in-house, light and heavy sheet metal fabrication and repairs, aircraft systems, welding, painting, research and assembly. Tom Walker is currently fabricating and installing the systems on a hybrid AT-6 with a Pratt & Whitney R-1830, while Steve Marquise is rebuilding flight controls and flaps for a P-51C being assembled in the shop.