During the 1970's the Beaver County AIrport (north of Pittsburgh), started to host an airshow. It started small and through the 1980's and into the 90's was starting to become a pretty large warbird show. I can remember on year that there were 3 B-17's, a B-24, and several other warbirds. Beaver County Airport or BVI has a 4,510' runway with a huge drop off at the end of it. During the airshow "909" came in and landed with several passengers on board. the pilot touched down half way down the runway, and initially only touched down on one main. He stated due to a crosswind he was having trouble getting the other wing down. He ran out of runway, went through a fence, and crashed down the hill side. Damage to the B-17 was severe.
Before it was raised damage was assessed and a decission had to be made as to what to do with the aircraft. Remember this was in the late 80's and things are different now. Mr. Collings himself along with someone else that I will just call Mr. R came out to see the plane. Mr.R stated that it was to far gone and they they should just cut it up and part it out. Mr. Collings talked to Air Heritage, who at the time was just a group of guys with one airplane and a small T-Hangar, and they said they could rebuild it. It took years and alot of help from alot of people and places. US Airways gave us hangar space to rebuild her wings and even assigned mechanics they could spare to the B-17 to help. The fuselage was repaired in the Stinson Aviation Hangar. When it went over the hill it had a fake ball turret and no tail stinger. We got the drawings for a tail stinger from the NMUSAF and built one. A gentleman stopped and said that he had a ball turret and would like to donate it. He said, " It is home between the washer and dryer and my wife is dying for me to get it out of there" Sure enough he brought the whole thing to us, structure and all. Another man asked if he could give us a brand new prop he had for his game room, and in trade wanted a bent one from the B-17. They traded him, and he had a brand new propr still in the crate. The NMUSAF gave us patterns we asked for to make different parts. The firewalls were trashed, adn the helped us make alot of parts in there. She came together after years of hard work from the volunteers. these people gave time, blood, sweat, and tears. THey gave money right from their own wallets to go and get stuff for it. It was a special project to the whole community. Then one winter day she flew, and there wasn't a dry eye in the place. She went to Florida for some further work, and that is when we were shocked to see an article in a magazine that bashed us. It was an interview with Mr R. He stated that volunteers had no business restoring airplanes because most are rejects, and then named many things that he said he and his crew had to redo that we did. Problem was that over half of the things that he named, were not damaged in the crash, and we never touched them. The stuff that we did repair was done in accordance with all FAA documentation, and done so with the help of the NMUSAF and Boeing. So if they were not right, it was his fault as they were done at his facility. A letter was written to him telling him this, and he admitted right away that he was wrong, but no retraction was ever seen in a magazine. 909 was slated to come back to BVI and give rides to those that worked so hard on it, but it never happened. 909 has never been back to BVI since the early 90's.
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