Wayne Patenaude has a soft spot for World War II airplanes.
The planes or “warbirds,” as they are frequently called, are regular visitors to the Columbus-Lowndes County Airport, where Patenaude and Charles O’Neal Pierce Jr. work to keep them flying.
Patenaude said they often work on old T-6 and P-51 fighters, but a B-25 “Mitchell” medium bomber is a new, unique arrival to the airport.
“This is probably the most unique we’ve had in here,” he said. “We do a number of Mustangs and T-6s, but this is the first bomber we’ve had in here in Columbus.”
For Patenaude, working on the planes is a long-time passion. He said his love for airplanes, especially the old warbirds, goes back to his childhood when his father took him to air shows.
“The first planes I knew were the P-51 and the B-17,” he said.
Now, years later, he’s working to keep some of those planes flying.
“It’s awesome — I love it,” he said. “We have our days where we get aggravated with the plane when it doesn’t want to cooperate. But it’s pretty awesome to be able to get up and go to work and actually enjoy what you do. It’s a passion. I love these airplanes, and as long as I’m able to work on these, I’ll keep them going as long as I can.”
The B-25 belongs to the Collings Foundation. The foundation is a Massachusetts-based nonprofit organization that has a collection of old military planes that tour the country. Patenaude is a former mechanic with the organization, which is how he found out about the plane and brought it to Columbus.
How it all started
Patenaude’s love of airplanes led him to the Air Force, for which he served in from 1993-97. After that, he worked in Florida, then Golden Triangle Regional Airport for a few years before he moved to the Columbus-Lowndes airport.
Pierce has worked with Patenaude for seven years. He’s newer to working on airplanes. He moved furniture in Birmingham, Alabama, before the 2008 recession. Pierce said most of his airplane experience comes from working on T-6s and P-51s, but he’s not unfamiliar with the B-25.
Pierce said the first World War II plane he ever worked on was a blue T-6. He likes working on the planes, especially because he had a fondness for fighters as a child.
Pierce said he has learned a lot under Patenaude, and he has even had to relearn some things he thought he knew from learning under the supervision of other mechanics. Still, one of the most important things, he said, is it’s OK to take your time instead of trying to finish fast and making a mistake.
“Just know what you’re doing,” he said. “If you don’t know, ask questions. People don’t get frustrated when you ask questions.”
Patenaude and Pierce also work on modern planes. There’s some crossover, Patenaude said, between a modern Cessna propeller plane and an old T-6, but he said a lot of what he knows about working on warbirds he has learned by doing it.
“This is a dying practice,” he said. “When I was out on the road, that’s how I learned these airplanes. I was out with them, and it was ‘This is broke, so it’s gotta be fixed,’ so you just figure it out. They don’t teach this in (airframe and power plant) school.”
Working on the plane
The bomber, dubbed the “Tonedelayo” didn’t see combat but bears the name and paint job of a now-scrapped B-25 that flew in World War II.
Patenaude went to Birmingham about two weeks ago to fly the B-25 to the airport. Since then, he and Pierce have set about removing some of the paneling and other parts, like the elevators on the wings, as they work on a complete annual inspection.
It’s a major undertaking — as the inspection progresses, he and Pierce will work over the entire airplane to make sure everything is operational.
“We’ve got two months to get the inspection done, and then it goes right back on the road and touring the United States,” he said.
He added that beyond his passion for working on the planes, he thinks it’s important to keep them around so future generations can learn about them.
“The old airplanes are fun to work on,” he said. “Not only are we keeping them flying, but we’re sharing them for the next generation.”
Patenaude said working with the airplanes has also led him to meet all kinds of people, and he enjoys hearing their stories.
Once, when he was still with the Collings Foundation, a woman asked to bring her father, a veteran, out to see a B-17 “Flying Fortress.” He said the veteran was wheelchair-bound and tended to stutter when he spoke, but that changed once they were in the bomber.
“He was a pilot in a B-17,” he said. “Once we got him in the airplane, he walked from the tail all the way up to the front, sat in the pilot’s seat and proceeded for an hour to tell us his stories and never stuttered one time. We got him out of the airplane, back into the wheelchair and he started stuttering again.
“That’s just to show how much affection there is and how much a big part of their lives the airplanes were for that generation,” he added. “That makes every part of it worth it.”
Alex Holloway was formerly a reporter with The Dispatch.
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