Don and Donny Port
John W. McCullough/Texas Tech University
The father-son team of Don and Donny Port located the frame of a Piper L-4A which was assigned to Finney Field during World War II. Donny Port purchased the frame from Duff’s Salvage Yard in 2004, and Don Port was able to get the history of the craft from the Smithsonian Institute.
NOTE: This is the 23rd article about Clent Breedlove’s Plainview Pre-Glider School at Finney Field.
By John W. McCullough
Texas Tech Graduate Student — History
In the last article, some details about a letter from the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum provided more information about a Piper L-4A aircraft which Joe Morris purchased in 2006. Morris bought the aircraft frame from a man who lived outside of Denver, Colo.
The plane was just a shell at the time Morris bought it, and was not flyable.
“It was really just the frame of the plane when I purchased it and it showed a lot of wear. It obviously had been exposed to the weather for many years,” commented Morris.
The letter from the Smithsonian, which came with the aircraft frame when Morris purchased it, was addressed to Don Port of Golden, Colo.
Sidney Donald “Don” Port did not actually purchase the Piper L-4A aircraft frame, but his son did. Don Port gave some details about his involvement with the Piper L-4A, but then referred other questions to his son, Donald E. “Donny” Port of Bailey, Colo., for more answers about the purchase and restoration of the aircraft frame.
In a recent interview, Donny Port stated that he stumbled across what he thought was a Piper “Cub” aircraft frame at Duff’s Salvage Yard just outside of Denver, Colo., in 2004. Port said that Duff only dealt in aircraft salvage.
He said that Duff passed away just a year ago or so, but that the business was still operating under a new owner.
A search online found this listing: J.W. Duff Aircraft Co. at 8131 E. 40th Ave, Denver, Colo. When checking the website, the name of the company was listed as Acme Aircraft Sales & Salvage.
In a recent interview, Ken Harris, owner of Acme Aircraft Sales & Salvage (www.acmeairss.com), said that he purchased Duff Aircraft Salvage in July 2013.
Harris had discussed purchasing the business from Duff several times, and that they were negotiating a deal when Duff died in early 2013.
He left his entire business to his nephew, Jim Duff, who lives in Pueblo, Colo., said Harris. Harris then purchased the business from Jim Duff.
Harris said that to the best of his knowledge, J.W. Duff started his aircraft salvage business about 65-70 years ago, just after WWII ended.
According to Harris, Duff originally used his site as a temporary storage facility for wrecked aircraft. The insurance companies were interested in seeing the wrecks. Eventually, Duff had so many wrecked aircraft that he opened an aircraft salvage business.
An additional search online found the obituary for J.W. “Bill” Duff. The website (www.archdenmort.org) said that Duff was born June 24, 1926, and died Jan. 10, 2013.
The website stated that Duff owned and operated J.W. Duff Aircraft Company for more than 60, years and that it had expanded into “the largest small aircraft salvage yard in the country.” Duff had been inducted into the Colorado Aviation Hall of Fame, stated the obituary.
Harris said that Acme Aircraft covers 19 acres and that, like Duff, he only deals in aircraft salvage.
Donny Port said that in 2004, Duff’s Salvage was comprised of acres and acres of airplane frames, wings and parts. It was bounded by a high chain link fence on all sides.
Donny Port said that he was looking for a Piper J3 “Cub” when he stumbled across what appeared to be a Piper L-4A frame when he visited Duff’s Aircraft Salvage Yard in 2004.
“It was in a pile of all kinds of planes. I mean, you really had to look to see what it even was back there. You know, the fuselage was laying there with the seats and everything in it. I knew what it was,” chuckled Port.
When asked how he knew what type of aircraft it was, Port replied that he had restored a Piper J3 “Cub” before. He also recognized the “greenhouse” framework on the back, top side of the L-4A plane which was used for observers. The observer’s seat would actually swing all the way around so that the man sitting in it could look rearward out of the back of the plane.
Port described the frame in which he was interested as a Piper J3 “Cub” when he asked Duff about purchasing it from him. Port said that the Piper L-4A frame is much more rare than the Piper J3 “Cub,” and thus much more expensive.
Duff had wings in his salvage yard which would fit an L-4A, but Port was not sure if the wings he found came from the same aircraft frame he had purchased. He said that the tail section, the “tail feathers,” were on the L-4A frame when he bought it.
“I paid for that fuselage, and it had landing gear, all the brakes and stuff that were in it; it was only $1,800,” said Port.
“It had the seats, but otherwise just the metal tubing of the frame of the aircraft. It did not have an engine, but it did have the floorboards and all the cables in it,” he recalled.
Port later paid an additional $1,500 for the wings, which he attached to the aircraft frame. He had to replace all the wood spars in the wings, however. The wings could have been from a Piper J3 “Cub,” but Port was not sure. He said that the wings of a J3 are interchangeable with the wings of an L-4A.
The horizontal stabilizer came with the frame, but he later purchased the elevators and rudder from Duff. He finished the rudders by covering them in fabric in olive drab color, or “OD green” as the Army calls that shade, said Port.
Port also bought an engine from Duff. It was a 65-hp Continental. He never purchased a propeller for it. He never completed the restoration of the airplane enough to be able to start the engine. It also had the boot cowling on it when he bought the frame.
Donny Port thinks that he spent about two to three months of total time restoring it over a year.
He is fairly certain that he purchased the Piper L-4A aircraft frame from Duff in May 2004 because his father, Don Port, wrote his letter to the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum requesting information about the aircraft shortly after the aircraft frame was purchased. The letter was dated May 26, 2004.
More about this history of Joe Morris’s Piper L-4A aircraft that was used in glider pilot training at Finney Field in early 1943 will be discussed in the next article.
Readers are asked to visit the Breedlove CPTP research website at www.breedlove-cptp.org for more details about the pre-glider program Finney Field.
Anyone with information about the Plainview Pre-Glider School at Finney Field should contact John McCullough at 806-793-4448 or email johnmc@breedlove-cptp.org.
Story and photos: http://www.myplainview.com
