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http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJ ... 071305.htm

By MORRIS SULLIVAN
Correspondent

Last update: July 13, 2005

DELAND -- In the stifling heat of a small, metal hangar at the DeLand Municipal Airport, Cal Lancaster, Ken Brownell and Pete Lowenstein work on a massive, World War II-era airplane engine. Chuck Chokanis sits nearby, offering occasional input and support.

During World War II, Chokanis was a naval petty officer who worked on airplanes that took off from the decks of aircraft carriers.

"He's our advisor," said Lancaster. "And he loans us these old tools that were around in the '40s that you need to work on these things."

The engine will never run again but it is being prepped for installation in a TBF, one of 1,500 fighter planes used by the Navy during the war. The plan is to display the engine at the DeLand Naval Air Station Museum.

The plane is a small part of a grander vision that has the museum's tiny main building attached to an expansive new hangar with room for the TBF and the museum's ever-expanding collection of memorabilia and artifacts. The expansion also would include meeting rooms, a library, and a computer lab with flight simulators.

The DeLand Naval Air Station Museum was chartered in 1994 to document WW II and the role it played in the history of DeLand. During the war, the Navy operated a training facility at what is now the municipal airport.

The museum currently occupies a small building used during the war as quarters for the air station's master-at-arms. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. More memorabilia, including a MASH helicopter from the Korean War and a vintage Buick, are displayed in a borrowed hangar a few blocks away, sharing space with an assortment of planes and vehicles belonging to the hangar's owner.

In 2004, the museum began trying to raise funds to expand. "We're a small museum that thinks big," said museum president Scott Storz. "We have a hefty program we want to get into."

The expansion will cost an estimated $400,000 for a 10,000-square-foot hangar to replace the one loaned to them by a friend of the organization. "It's nice to have, but we really need something of our own," Storz said. The new hangar would sit behind the existing museum on Biscayne.

"So it will be right behind the building, and everything will be all in one place," he said. "We foresee a hangar with a small canteen, too, so we can have social events there," such as the museum's annual Hangar Dance.

Early fund-raising projects haven't gotten them very far, however. An attempt to sell the MASH helicopter through an Internet action was fruitless. "We withdrew it because it wasn't going in the direction we wanted," Storz said. They still hope to sell the helicopter, along with a restored T-33 jet that was once used to take surveillance photos.

"So far, we haven't raised enough to speak of," Storz said, "but we have a good core group of people and we're going into serious fund-raising mode now." They applied to the county for operating funds and were recommended for a $5,700 grant.

"It's a learning process, but the city of DeLand is a terrific supporter," he said, adding that the city has provided grant-writing expertise. With its recent acquisition of an F-14 Tomcat and a visit by retired Sen. Bob Dole, the museum has gotten a lot of attention and support recently. "So all that gives us a solid footing to work from," Storz said.

In the meantime, donated artifacts continue to arrive, including a 10-foot model of the USS Saratoga aircraft carrier. "It's a working model," Storz said. "You could put a motorcycle battery in it and sail it on a lake."

They also have on loan a bust of Charles Bailey, a DeLand native who served as a Tuskeegee airman. Last week, the museum received an anchor that was found in the woods at an Army base in Georgia, Storz said. The anchor has a date --1942 -- stamped into the metal. "That's the same year the Navy opened the base," Storz said.

Lancaster is hopeful the hangar will become a reality and the restored TBF its first aircraft display. But for now, the plane sits in pieces behind the museum while the volunteers slowly and painstakingly restore it.

The restoration is "a lot of work," Lancaster said. So far, he guesses they've put in 300 to 400 hours per man. And they have a long way to go.

In late 1942, the Navy started training their carrier pilots in the Chicago area.

"They commandeered two sidewheel boats that had been used to carry people around Lake Michigan, put big flat decks on them, and trained the pilots to take off and fly from those," Lancaster said.

"The airplane was only 9-months-old when it met its demise," he said. "The pilot was carrier qualifying and saw fire coming from the engine area." Rather than landing it on the "carrier," he ditched in the water.

The plane stayed on the bottom of Lake Michigan for 40 years, then was salvaged and stored at a military museum in Pensacola. The DeLand Naval Air Station Museum acquired it about 18 months ago.

Lancaster estimates the project will probably cost around $50,000 when completed. "That includes the sheet metal work we need for the fuselage, and the thousand bucks we paid for the engine."