Enthusiast rebuilds classic military plane in Crystal Lake
By DAVID FITZGERALD - dfitzgerald@nwherald.com
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| Justin Wille (left) and Steve Kulovsek, both of Crystal Lake, work Friday on the hydraulics for the landing gear of a T-28 Trojan plane at Warbird Restorations in Crystal Lake. (Lauren M. Anderson – landerson@nwherald.com) |
CRYSTAL LAKE – Steve Kulovsek and a small group of fellow T-28 enthusiasts on Thursday drove to Oshkosh, Wis., for a celebration of the Navy training plane’s 60th anniversary.
About a year away from being able to take flight again, the T-28 that the group has spent about 3,000 hours meticulously restoring was left behind at Kulovsek’s Warbird Restorations in an industrial building he owns in Crystal Lake.
“If we would have known about the event one year earlier, we would have pushed a lot harder to get it done,” Kulovsek said.
The T-28 marks a pivotal point in aviation history as one of the last propeller models before the advent of the jet engine. Only a few hundred of the model, which was produced between 1950 and 1958, are in working order.
Kulovsek of Prairie Grove bought the plane two years ago and had it shipped in pieces via truck to Warbird Restorations near the intersection of Routes 31 and 14.
“Where else are you going to do it?” he asked. “Your garage?”
Since then, the Hoffman Estates firefighter has been hard at work renovating the plane piece by piece.
“When I’m off duty, I’m here,” he said.
And he isn’t alone. A steady group of volunteers, including Bob Nitschneider of Trout Valley, Bob Koif of Algonquin, and Justin Wille of Crystal Lake, has pitched in to help Kulovsek.
Every piece gets taken out and either repaired or replaced. Some parts they fabricate themselves in the shop.
“We try to use as much of the original as we can,” Kulovsek said. “But every nut and bolt on the whole plane are new. And these aren’t the kind you can just buy from Menards.”
Almost as much of a history buff as an aviation enthusiast, Kulovsek made a trip to Washington, D.C., to research the plane using its Navy identification number at the Smithsonian. He was taken into a back room and got to see the official records for the plane. It was mostly used as an instruction plane in Florida – although some T-28s made their way to Vietnam during the war. Kulovsek’s plane flew until 1981.
The core group has been joined by a steady stream of visitors who somehow find their way to his work space. Many have heard about the plane through EAA, an experimental aircraft association that put together AirVenture Oshkosh, the event Thursday celebrating the T-28.
“People just seem to find me,” he said. “We show them around and then give them a screwdriver.”
A few weeks ago, a man from Roselle who stopped by the shop had done something that Kulovsek will have to wait another year to do – fly in this particular T-28. A former Navy flight instructor at Whiting Field in Pensacola, Fla., the man brought with him his old instruction log books, showing just how often and for how long he took trainees up for training.
The man left behind old manuals and a pilot’s checklist, all dating to the late 1950s.
Taken as a whole, the project and the estimated 5,000 hours of manpower that it requires would be overwhelming, Kulovsek said.
“All it is, is taking it one piece at a time,” he said. “It’s like building a house one board at a time.”
If everything goes according to plan, the T-28 will make the trip to next year’s AirVenture Oshkosh, even if it is one year late for its 60th reunion.
“This would have been one of the better ones there,” Kulovsek said.
