Making it fly again:

[In case you missed our oinitial tease of this remarkable story, or ur first installment, we've linked them for you --ed.]

Now, to continue where we left off:

After that unscheduled landing in 1989, the plane sat a while. Lars Gleitsmann, (Reffett's buisness partner and copilot on one of the recent flights, in Reffett's other C-119, N8501W, shown, right), related, "John and his crew (3men!) replaced the (right) engine in Port Lions. (I guess it was in Winter 1995/96, if I remember right); but the left one always did well when it was run in 1996 and in Winter 2000." The german co-pilot of the flights of the recently-resurrected N1394N (all today's other C-119 photos) was Alexander Roesch, captains a C-46 in Alaska for a living.

There were the "little things," too. John Reffett told us the town kept a watchful eye on the big birdie, and it stayed remarkably trouble-free, considering it was 'open to the public' for so long. "There was a bit of this, a bit of that," he said, "some 'punk' kinds of things - a some broken windows; someone took some instruments, one time, in a separate, unrelated incident." Not bad, considering...

Port Lions is a GREAT Host!

Reffett had unbounded praise for the folks of Port Lions (as did Gleitsmann and Bartels): "As for 'adopting the airplane,' that's what the community really did. Anybody that bothered the airplane, wasn't welcome there." His warmest feelings are for the people of Port Lions: "The town adopted us, as well. Port Lions -- they're wonderful -- everybody there helped us -- helping with phone calls, labor, watching the airplane."

Reffett (in copilot's seat, with Bartels, right) worked on the machine, sometimes for a month or more, even in the winter, often sleeping in his 'aluminum cabin.' Gleitsmann worked on it, too -- no mean feat when you live in Germany. He wrote us, "I may add that I'm also wrenching on 'em (Boxcars), and spent more than two months this Summer and Autumn in Port Lions with John Reffett, repairing and checking, servicing the plane. We got help from friends in the village (that 's two miles away), too. I shall mention that my girlfriend showed up for 3 weeks and helped, as well!" Lars continued, "Since the first of November (pilot/)Captain Roger Bartels was working on the plane, too. I had to return to Germany to work."

Still, there's a lot to do, on such a big bird: "It was an all out effort, really. After all these Years of struggling, fighting vandalism, theft, weather, bureaucracy -- and being scared of the Grizzly bears!" 'Some day' just kept stretching out, though. Gleitsmann wrote, "I organized a expedition to the plane with our friend Lee Wareham and the C185 in the last Spring, to do repairs of vandalism, and evaluate the situation to see if we can pull this off -- THIS YEAR. It looked quite grim. Without the help of our friends, and especially the VILLAGERS of Port Lions, we could not have done it."

Reffett gave local media, which kind of adopted the plane, too, as it neared completion. "The [media reporting] has helped get this done," he said, adding that the locals' help was invaluable. "I couldn't have gotten it done in seven lifetimes alone."

They did it.

The first flight out really was crew-limited. Reffett said, "We got it ready to fly, ready to bring home once in 1996; we had a couple local pilots, who weren't too happy about [flying] it. That first effort -- we ran out of weather, out of time." He looked around for his favorite C-119 pilot Bartels, and found him -- in Kenya. [Bartels is in demand for odd flying assignments: in 1996 Bartels was in the southwest Pacific, flying helicopters off tuna boats. Two ships sank while he worked there; the helicopter, that was repaired at the time, sank too!] Reffett talked him into coming back to the States for a while in 2001 and 2002; and Bartels also pitched in, getting the Boxcar ready for its trip home now.

Before Thanksgiving, the C-119 was fired up, to go eventually to Palmer (AK), Reffett's home base, by way of Kodiak. Reffett said the first takeoff in over thirteen years was unusual, in more ways than one. "It was interesting. It was a circus event -- the whole village turned out. By the time we got to end of the runway, some of the people had spilled over near there." The machine had plenty of lift, though. "We wanted it to be light, and ran at quite a power setting -- a guy was escorting us in a Twin Comanche, and he couldn't keep up!"

Just one more 'little' thing: a bad engine.

The flight from Port Lions (right) two+ weeks ago was uneventful. The next flight was to have gotten the machine to Palmer, where extensive work could be more-easily done at Reffett's facility. The little flight wasn't so little, though. Gleitsmann, gave us the history: "That (left) R3350 engine seemed very healthy in Port Lions... It didn't make any metal and we got it running fine right away, no squawks! It behaved itself nicely during the first flight into Kodiak." It was just playing a game... "On preparation for leaving Kodiak it acted up, demanded more TLC, with wet distributors. With them dry and retimed, it ran wonderful on the ground in Kodiak, and on takeoff. Compression check was fine all 18 jugs." Then, when it looked great, "upon power reduction to cruise climb it started to run rough, getting worse, then [they saw]lower oil pressure and climbing oil temp at the same time. Everybody knew what was going on at that moment." It didn't take long, either. Lars continued, "Torque reading went to [garbled] and shutdown was done, feathering [the prop]. Return to Kodiak!"

They thought about continuing. Gleitsmann wrote, "Lightweight as they were, they could have continued, but better safe than sorry." Background was provided by Reffett's buisness partner (and fellow pilot), as he continued, "This very engine was the oldest one in our fleet; it had survived a lot, and it was likely to fail. High time; oil consumption was very high on it. We hoped to rebuild it as soon as it got home, to Palmer, north of Anchorage. Now it makes metal; bad. The core of it is junk... The other engine on that fateful day (13 years ago) had 'had it' on that takeoff on the very soft beach at Egegik. Its failure later did lead to the precautionary landing at Port Lions  at the end of that very flight."

Never say 'never.'

Back in Kodiak (right -- how do you like that approach!) but having tasted flight, Reffett sure wasn't going to quit. While still at Kodiak, we asked how the effort was going. "It's been quite an ordeal, but it's paying off.," he said, and went back to work. He went to Palmer, and pulled an engine off his other C-119, and screwed it to the newest flier in the fleet. (This was the fastest way to put a known good engine to work!) They took off last week, and flew to Palmer. "A few instruments either quit working, or didn't work anyway -- but we made it," he said. "It was as uneventful as it could possibly be." Did he use the jet, just in case? "It's working, but we didn't use it on today's trip," he said. "It doesn't have enough thrust to fly the airplane by itself, but it gives you a lot of reserve. That's comforting."

Next? FLYING Boxcars!

John Reffett doesn't stay still for long. He has other projects to attend to. First, he needs to get the donor C-119 back in the air. Even then, though, he won't run out of things to do. "I own things -- I'm a pack rat. I 've got a 180, a 182, a Citabria rolled up in a ball; and some of a J-4 Cub Coupe, that's destined to become a 'homebuilt.' Some day, I'd like to have a 180 on floats; or put them on a 182, and call it a 181..."

The newfound publicity afforded by the resurrection of the Flying Boxcar has given him some status, he notes. "A while ago, were were just 'junk airplane guys;' now we're historians."
[Thanks to John Reffett, Lars Gleitsmann, Roger Bartels, Eddie Rose, Meagan Holland, and the great people of Port Lions, Alaska! --TK]

FMI: We're told that www.flyingboxcar.com will be up and running in a couple weeks.