Warbird Information Exchange

Company restores historic World War II plane
It all started for Erik Hokuf while he was participating in local 4-H as a kid.

As he built radio-controlled planes and model airplanes and rockets, he developed an intense passion for aviation.

Hokuf is now a co-owner of Aircorps Aviation, a new local business that works to restore World War II airplanes.

Specifically, fighter planes.

With his wife, Sarah, brother, Chad, and other owners, Mark Tisler, Eric Trueblood and Dan Matejcek, Hokuf recently restored and presented a P-51 Mustang at the largest air show in the world.

“Twilight Tear won Grand Champion at the Air Venture Air Show two weeks ago in Oshkosh, Wisconsin,” Hokuf said. “It’s kind of the highest award in aircraft restoration, fighters especially, in the world.”

While the Grand Champion award technically goes to the owner of the plane, Hokuf and company won the Golden Wrench award given to the best shop.

Twilight Tear is named after a famous racehorse of the 1940s and was Erik’s first award-winning project.

Its journey through life began when it came off the factory line in January 1945.

Twilight Tear was named by its pilot before combat during World War II and became a member of the 78th Fighter Group in Duxford, England.

At the end of the war in 1946, the plane was sold to Sweden.

After a following stint in the Israeli Air Force, the plane was sold in 1958 to a private owner, Bill Lear Jr., son to the creator of the Learjet, William Powell Lear.

Three years later in 1961, the plane was sold to a man from Los Angeles, Calif.

This man hired a French pilot to ferry the plane to him, but the pilot had little experience and on the way to Los Angeles, the plane crashed in Iceland where it lay in a heap of metal for nearly 30 years.

Eventually it made its way to its current owner in Granite Falls, Minn., who hired Hokuf and the others to restore it to its authentic and original form.

Being what they call a “combat vet” plane made it an extra special project worth an extraordinary amount of money.

“Warbirds like Twilight Tear can have a value anywhere from $1 million to $8 million,” Hokuf said. “Combat vets are kind of a premium, like classic cars that were once owned by famous people.”

With that kind of worth being involved, Hokuf’s customers are mainly exceedingly wealthy collectors from around the world.

Hokuf’s career working with planes began when he started work at Bemidji Aviation at the age of 16.

“I’ve always had a passion for World War II airplanes,” Hokuf said.

He continued to work at Bemidji Aviation until he was 20. He then began working on planes for a charter company in Minneapolis for four years.

Subsequently, Hokuf worked on a collection of World War II planes in Granite Falls, Minn., until 2008.

In April 2011, he moved into the building the crew now resides in located in the Bemidji Industrial Park.

Hokuf considers himself lucky to co-own a business working on the things he loves.

“I like aviation, but the other part of the planes for me is the romance,” Hokuf said. “The stories of 18- and 19-year-old young men getting brand new fighter planes and saving the world.”

“I mean these are the planes that saved the world from Hitler and the Japanese,” Hokuf said, with a look of admiration.

While the crew focuses on full plane restorations, which take two to three years to complete, they have smaller projects to keep them busy in the meantime.

“Essentially we take down one big project at a time,” Hokuf said. “And right now, we’re building a pair of old wooden wings.”

Along with restoration, Aircorps Aviation also does work with components and maintenance.

“We maintain a collection of airplanes owned by the Texas Flying Legends Museum,” Hokuf said. “They travel throughout the country.”

While the planes stop in Minot, N.D., Aircorps Aviation does the required once-a-year inspection and maintenance of the collection.

“The collection includes a P-40, two P-51s, a B-25 Bomber, a real Japanese Zero and an F-4U Corsair,” Hokuf said. “They’re all award-winning planes.”

While working on restoration projects, Hokuf and company must search long and hard for the exact authentic parts and schematics.

“We work with places such as the Smithsonian to get our parts and details,” Hokuf said. “Sometimes we even discover details about planes that people were unaware of.”

Hokuf’s attention to detail and authenticity came to the forefront on the Twilight Tear.

“We actually installed authentic World War II machine guns on the Twilight Tear,” Hokuf said. “It’s one of the only planes to ever have that done to it.”

In fact, the Twilight Tear was such an exceptional plane that its owners are working on a documentary of it to present to television networks in hopes of it airing nationally.

But Hokuf isn’t planning on letting Twilight Tear be his last great restoration project as he already has another famous plane on the docket to arrive in the next couple weeks.

This next plane is another combat vet and P-51 Mustang by the name of Sierra Sue II.

This model of plane was commented on by the Senate War Investigating Committee in 1944 as being “The most aerodynamically perfect pursuit plane in existence.”

This plane is so infamous that it has a book written about it by John Christgau, “Sierra Sue II: The story of a P-51 Mustang.”

Being crowned the best in the world is an unforgettable feat, and Hokuf and company are doing their best to make history, by restoring history.

I need to start a place like that around these parts!

Are you kidding? Look at this group of young artists/craftsmen willing and able to commit to the preservation of what this old fart loves? My hat is off to them as I saw TT up close and personal this year at OSH.

I wish I were 30 years younger and could go to work for them! Keep hope alive. This is a great thing.