A-4 Skyhawk To Get Beauty Treatment
A partnership between
the Millville Army Air Field Museum and the New Jersey Academy of
Aviation Science will allow an A-4 Skyhawk aircraft, which flew in
Vietnam, to be restored for public display. "The plane is on loan
from the Navy," said museum director Guy Robbins. "Unlike the Army,
the Navy only loans the aircraft and you have to fill out a report
once a year to tell them what you are doing with it." The museum
obtained this plane in the 1990s, Robbins said.
Because the Navy opted to keep its engine, the fighter will
remain on static display. The museum team found out the A-4 was
previously used by the Navy's Blue Angels, leaving the blue/yellow
paint scheme as a decorative choice for the museum. While having an
A-4 is a treat for any museum, it does comes with a few strings
attached. "There are three requirements," said Dennis Pierce,
coordinator of the project and an instructor at the academy. "It
has to be maintained in its original modifications, without
changes, it has to be kid-proof and it has to be bird-proof."
Dallas Airmotive has
promised to donate the paint and Robbins said the museum is looking
for donations of materials or money for the restoration from other
sources. Robbins said the aircraft will be kept in a hangar when
completed, which may be sometime around August. Just which hangar
is still being worked out. "It will be regularly inspected, like a
regular airplane that is flying," he said.
Several A&P students are working on the jet in order to gain
valuable experience toward their certification. The apprentices are
doing structural repairs, making patches and changing rivets.
Robbins indicated it will take from nine months to a year to
complete, at which time about 25 students will have worked on it,
completing work that would cost $150,000 to $200,000 if contracted.
When this one is done, the academy will be looking for other
classic aircraft to restore, he said. Most airplanes are flown in,
then deactivated. The military sends out a crew to take off the
explosive bolts for the ejection seats and bomb racks. "Once in a
while, the military donates a real, live aircraft for students to
work on. They will loan it to the school forever, as long as we
maintain it. This is an excellent project. What these guys learned
the past couple of weeks working around this aircraft they could
never have learned from a book. It's real work experience."
Robbins said another important aspect to the project is
preserving a historic aircraft. "The A-4 was sometimes used as a
drone, refitted to use as a target for live missile shoots, or just
left to rot," he said. Pierce trained on an A-4 when he first went
into the Marines, so this restoration is more meaningful to him.
"It was pretty amazing when I saw that at the museum. I trained on
an A-4. I worked on an A-4," he said.