SRT Aviation to dismantle World War II P1 Trainer at Forest Park in St. Louis
By TESA CULLI
tesa.culli@register-news.comMT. VERNON — SRT Aviation will be traveling to St. Louis today to work on a project that preserves a part of aviation history.
The group will be working on lifting a P1 World War II trainer now hanging at the Missouri Historical Society museum in Forest Park in preparation for the plane to be moved back to its home at Parks College.
“It’s an original World War II trainer,” Shawn Sayle of SRT Aviation said. “Parks College manufactured it, and then trained pilots in accredited courses during World War II. After the pilots completed the course, they went straight to active duty.”
Sayle said there are very few of the trainers in existence and is considered a “very rare aircraft.”
SRT Aviation was responsible for hanging the plane at the museum a year ago, and the plane has been on exhibit for the public since.
Also last year, the company hung the Charles Lindbergh Serial No. 2 plane at the East Terminal at Lambert Airport last year.
“We also have a yearly contract to get up on that aircraft and clean it for them,” Sayle said. “Now our company is in the airplane hanging business.”
SRT is the fixed base operator for the Mt. Vernon Outland Airport and has a successful plane maintenance and repair business and offers a flight school at the airport. Projects like working on the P1 Trainer and Lindbergh airplane are not the norm for airplane repair and maintenance companies, Sayle said.
“It’s our experience in vintage aircraft restoration that has led them to trust us in the efforts to lift the plane,” Sayle said. “After we lift it, the folks from Parks College will be there to disassemble it and move the aircraft after we bring it down.”
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"Charles Lindbergh Serial No. 2" Oh, that's right, Charles kept a backup NYP on a tiny island in the North Atlantic. The NYP that departed NY and the plane that landed in Paris are not the same plane.