Cruising the skies in vintage aircraft: Aviation enthusiasts keep history alive and flying high

Tom Long of Benedict said that as a boy he built model airplanes and “always wanted to be a pilot.”

Long, a licensed flight instructor with an airline transport pilot license and a mechanic with an inspection authority grade, now owns a few 1940s- and ’50s-era planes, some in flying order and others in stages of restoration, which he does himself. He is especially proud of his World War II Valiant BT-13, a two-seat bomber trainer he purchased in 1998 and hauled on a trailer home from California. He then spent two years restoring it.

“I fly it all the time,” he said, mentioning that when he and his wife go on fly-in breakfast trips meeting up with other pilots who fly in their planes to a restaurant, his plane grabs people’s attention. If it was bought new it would be worth close to $1 million, he said.

“I’ve always wanted something similar,” so he said when he saw it in Trade-A-Plane magazine he inquired. “All the parts were there except the engine and propeller,” Long said, adding that he preferred to have a freshly overhauled engine anyway.

Long, who also owns an aircraft restoration business in New York with a friend, said he likes the old-style planes, especially the World War II models.

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