Tuesday, December 26, 2017

Millington's Blue Angel getting long-overdue facelift

Visual Perfection and Towing employees Merle Webb, left, and Dale Crocker repair panels from an F-11 Tiger Blue Angel aircraft being refurbished at the shop. The plane is being moved from its previous location at the Millington Navy base to be displayed at the Millington-Memphis Airport.


Millington’s 60-year-old Blue Angel is getting a facelift.

The blue Grumman F-11F with yellow gold accents is under restoration in a Memphis body shop and awaiting reentry to the former Memphis Naval Air Station next year.

It was taken down from its perch along Navy Road in mid-October and hauled to Visual Perfection & Towing in Raleigh.

Visual owner James Jones and crew have painstakingly stripped three layers of paint, smoothed over dents and dings and applied an automotive-quality finish.



Visual Perfection and Towing owner James Jones explains the paint job required on the cockpit of a 1957 F-11 Tiger Blue Angel aircraft being refurbished at the shop. 


Visual moves heavy equipment for the Millington-Memphis Airport and Jones thought the aircraft project sounded fun.

But when he saw how veterans and the public felt about it, he doubled down on restoring it as perfectly as possible.

“It’s an icon of Millington, that’s one thing. Plus, I like airplanes,” said Jones, 51.

Once the plane was parked at his shop on Elmore, just east of Covington Pike’s automotive district, a steady stream of curiosity seekers showed up, many with strong emotional reactions.


Visual Perfection and Towing employees Merle Webb, Crystal McCaffrey, and Dale Crocker strip paint and repair panels from a 1957 F-11 Tiger Blue Angel aircraft being refurbished at the shop.


Some were angry because they feared the plane was being scrapped, Jones said. Others were overcome with emotion about the fact the plane was being restored.

“It didn’t mean anything until I talked to these people,” Jones said. “People came up and were crying and shaking my hand because we were doing this.”

The aircraft type was one of the Navy’s early carrier-based, supersonic aircraft, and the Millington Blue Angel is believed to date to 1957. Navy documents show it was in fleet service on the USS Intrepid in the Mediterranean in 1957-58, said Roy Remington, Millington-Memphis Airport executive director.


 Visual Perfection and Towing employee Crystal McCaffrey strips paint from a 1957 F-11 Tiger Blue Angel aircraft being refurbished at the shop. 


Jet technology was changing so rapidly that the F-11F was replaced with a more advanced aircraft after only about four years, Remington said.

The plane was assigned to training squadrons at Chase Field in Texas and then at Millington, where it was retired. It wasn’t used by the Navy’s famed Blue Angels, although the squadron did fly F-11s at one time.

It’s unclear how long the plane had been on display in Millington. Correspondence between Remington and the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola indicated it may have been there as early as 1964.

The plane fell into disrepair as the Navy base changed missions over the years and lost its emphasis on aviation. The body took a number of hits from grass-mowing crews, and volunteers gave it its most recent coat of paint.


December 7, 2017 - Visual Perfection and Towing employees made a mock speedometer for the cockpit of a 1957 F-11 Tiger Blue Angel aircraft being refurbished at the shop.


The airport assumed responsibility in May 2016 after discussions with the museum. “Rather than losing this important aircraft from the community, we took it over,” Remington said.

“We’re kind of going after it to get a fresh start. It’s being stripped, primed and painted with high-quality automotive paint,” he said. The airport is spending $2,000 for towing and $6,000 for paint and body work.

“The folks over at Visual are extremely patriotic and are interested in doing it for the good of the community,” Remington said.

On a Saturday morning, Jones hauled the 20,000-pound plane, 31 feet wide by 46 feet long, on a custom-made trailer with two trucks and an escort service ensuring its safe passage. Workers separated the fuselage into two sections and removed the wings to get it inside the shop.


December 7, 2017 - Visual Perfection and Towing employees Merle Webb, left, and Dale Crocker stand on the body of a 1957 F-11 Tiger Blue Angel aircraft being refurbished at the shop. 


By mid-December, it was stripped down to sheets of aluminum and awaiting two coats each of epoxy primer and urethane auto body paint. Jones is aiming to take the exterior markings back to what they would have been in 1968, including a Naval Air Training Command insignia of that vintage.

Jones wanted to be done by the first of the year.

Remington said the airport plans to display the plane at a new entrance, next to CTI flight training, that’s planned as part of a new parkway from Navy Road into the airport and Millington Industrial Park.

Mike Bogenschneider, a Millington native who owns Flag City Towing and was involved in moving the Blue Angel, said the plane means a lot to the community. It’s a symbol of the Navy’s importance to Memphis and the Blue Angels status as perhaps the Navy’s most recognizable symbol.

“That plane’s been out there all my life. The Blue Angels is a big thing,” said Bogenschneider.

Story and video ➤ http://www.commercialappeal.com

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