PILOT Q&A: BILL KLAERS

Air Classics, Aug 2005

How did you get interested in aviation?

It was in the early 1980s. My brother had a T-6 and we went to an airshow in Columbia, California, and I was hooked. I started taking lessons in 1981 while working on our Twin Beech and restoring a Stearman. I started flying a Cessna 150 at Apple Valley, California, and besides my flying to get a license, I have not kept a log book since. I started flying the Stearman on a student ticket. I had a construction company at the time and, because of insurance bonds, I could not complete the private. Art Scholl gave me a log book endorsement for the Stearman to make everyone happy. Finally, I had a two-week period between jobs and crammed in all the crosscountries, tests, etc. and got my private.

How did the whole process of getting into Warbirds start?

I built a hangar at Rialto Airport and it sort of started as a hobby. There was about a five-year slow transition between construction and Warbirds. We started out as Klaers Aviation and Alan Wojciak and I started building NA-SOs from T-6 airframes. Jeff Clyman bought our first NA-50 and with that money we bought two F7F Tigercats - 27C and 28C - along with a bunch of parts. We then did a dual control conversion on Jeff Clyman's Mustang. By that time, I owned the Twin Beech, the Stearman, and half-interest in the Texan. I then got a B-25 from Joe Davis and started restoration on the plane for a customer. However, that project fell through and I have the Mitchell in storage. Bob Lumbard was based at Rialto and he had the B-25 In the Mood which was sitting up at Eagle Field in central California. The plane had been sitting a couple of years and I went up there and flew it out of a 2700-ft strip with a hand-held radio. I bought half-interest in the plane and since then we have flown it up to 135-hrs a year to as low as 35-hrs a year. It is a good, solid bird.

Tell us about the carrier operations.

Lumbard got a brainstorm in 1992 to fly some Mitchells off a carrier to honor the 50th anniversary of the Doolittle Raid against Japan. We put a proposal together and, surprisingly, the Navy went along with it. All we had to do was get the insurance! Lloyds of London provided the insurance and Heavenly Body and In the Mood flew off the USS Ranger near San Diego. I went on to do four other carrier takeoffs in the Mitchell - once from the Carl Vincent for the Hawaii 50th anniversary celebration and again from the Vincent three months later off San Francisco. Then there were two for the movie Pearl Harbor, the most difficult being off the moored USS Lexington. There was little to no wind and with the heat we had a density altitude of 2000-ft! The second was at sea off the USS Constellation and that was much easier.

How did WestPac Restorations come about?

It was a natural growth from Klaers Aviation. Alan and I thought it would be just the two of us in the shop and we would use subcontractors. Little did we know we would have 14 employees! As the years went by, we kept getting more customers and recently expanded our hangar to have an attached very modern restoration facility complete with computer room and a large parts storage facility. Some of our current customers include North Point Aero Warbird Classics out of Colorado, Flying Heritage Collection, Jack Croul, and the Tennessee Museum of Aviation.

Where are we going with Warbird restorations?

It has become a very serious business with extremely dedicated collectors who are demanding the highest detail and quality of restoration work. One can compare it a bit to all the work that is undertaken on very rare auto restorations. It has gotten to the point where no detail is too small. Also, many of these collectors now want combat veteran aircraft. That means we are going to see more and more aircraft being recovered from ice caps, jungles, lakes, etc. to satisfy the demands for original combat aircraft. With each of these restorations, the bar is raised and we become smarter and leam more about these wonderful aircraft.

Do you have any unfulfilled aviation ambitions?

Not really - each day when I come into the hangar and look at all the planes is just wonderful. Every day is a fun day and I am having a ball. Imagine getting paid to do what you love. Great employees, good customers, and taking pride in what you doing, and to some degree even getting paid for it! How can you go wrong?