An avid modeler of eclectic tastes, Mike Kellner's collection includes a variety of plastic planes and ships as well as HO scale railroads and R/C aircraft of various scales. But none can compare to his favorite: A real Boeing B-17E. For Mike, it's the build of a lifetime — he already has spent 30 years on the project.
As far as Mike is concerned, the scale models are just for fun — he tries not to get tied up in superdetailing. Ironically, for a man with a barn full of steel and aluminum aircraft parts, he doesn't care much for photoetched metal or other aftermarket goodies. Gesturing toward the barn, he says, "There's nothing in there I have to pick up with tweezers."
Mike's main build began in 1984, when he acquired what was left of a partially scrapped B-17E that was slowly disappearing into a forest near LaGrange, Maine. Photographs had shown what looked like a salvageable airframe. But, arriving at the site, Mike wasn't so sure. Trees were growing through the fuselage, and various parts of the plane had lain on the forest floor for decades, shrouded in leaves and moss.
So, the first part of the salvage was a logging operation. Trees were felled and access roads cut through the forest.
Then there was the aircraft itself. Damage to the airframe began during World War II, when the B-17E was converted to an XC-108, a cargo version used as a litter carrier in Indochina.
Mike says: "It was accepted by the Army Air Corps on Feb. 14, 1942. Its first station was at MacDill AFB.
"This is the 203rd E model made. The first 112 had the remote turret. So they were in the transition of going to the [Sperry] manned ball turret. We were told that production was behind.
"This particular airplane, along with four others that we could find, didn't have a ball turret on it when it went down there. That's probably what saved it, because this was attached to the 97th [Bomb Group], one of the first groups that went to England. But this one was left behind because they got behind on ball turrets. So we have photos of at least five of these Es with no turret on them. They were used as trainers. They didn't go overseas with the rest of them."
Eventually the aircraft found its way to North Africa, where it was reconfigured before moving on to Indochina to evacuate casualties. The conversion wreaked havoc on the interior, where the interior layout was extensively changed to produce additional floor space.
"Working on it, we've found lots of things that were damaged, even had holes in it, so it may well have been shot at," Mike says.
"When the plane returned to the States in '45 it became a general cargo plane. As a cargo plane it flew to Greenland, Iceland, the East Coast, and was stationed at Bangor, Maine. That's where it was sold."
The buyer was a man in LaGrange who acquired several surplus aircraft to put his sons in the scrap-metal business. “You had a bunch of guys with axes and torches," Mike says. "They just started chopping it up."
Luckily for Mike, the boys lost interest before finishing off the Fort. "They started dating girls and driving cars, and it just never got done. So it was abandoned there. The story at the time was they left this for last because it was the only B-17 they had."
Mike and his crew extricated the plane and loaded it on a modified mobile-home trailer, raising eyebrows from New England to the Midwest as they trucked it to Illinois. The plane had been purchased for $7,250, but the price was rising quickly. It cost more than $20,000 to bring it to McHenry County.
"It took us about 6 years to get it all here," Mike says. Then, about 20 years ago, we built the first section there. We’ve really gotten most of our work done in the last 20 years."
Seeing the B-17 and other aircraft strewn throughout the building in various heaps of vintage parts, it's hard to fathom the amount of work that's already been done — let alone what remains to be done before the plane flies.
But it will fly — of that Mike is certain. He says, " It’ll not only be a good airplane, it will be almost like new. The last thing I want to think of at the end of the runway is, 'Should we have done this better?' When we get flying I know that it’s going to be OK."
And when does he think that will be? "Thursday," he says. "That's what we've been saying from the beginning.
"It will be Thursday. We're just not sure what month or year."