In January 2015 EAA began restoration on its B-25 Mitchell, Berlin Express. Over the past four years a team of aircraft mechanics in the Kermit Weeks Hangar: EAA Flight Research Center and volunteers from EAA’s chapter network have worked to bring the bomber back to its former glory. After EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2018, it came time to paint the warbird, which EAA aircraft mechanic Tracy Buttles said presented several challenges, the first and obvious one being its size.
“When John [Hopkins, EAA director of aircraft maintenance,] initially came up to me with what are we going to do — cause it’s going to be hard to find somebody that’s going to want to do that for us — I said well, let’s just do it ourselves,” Tracy said. “John and I got together and said let’s paint the fuselage in half sections. … It’s still a big project, but at least it’s still a little bit more manageable.”
Tracy said that the process involved working in small sections moving from the center of the wing forward for the nose and tail sections separate from the fuselage.
“The wings were a little bit more daunting because our ladders … and our support structures to get up there would not reach over the top, and the chord of the wing is so long that it’s hard to reach on each end to get paint coverage on the thing,” he said. “So we wound up walking it out. We did from outside the nacelle where the outer wing attaches to the fuselage and the nacelles themselves in separate spray sessions. … So we’d be on top of the wing walking it all the way out to the edge. We had to wait till it dried in order to be able to walk up there. … That was probably the most difficult thing to do was the top of those wings.”
Not only is it a challenge to paint an aircraft of that size, but it’s even more challenging when you have to paint it outside. The restoration team had to content with the wide-ranging weather in Wisconsin that is known to change on a dime.
“We did not get to the wings till quite a ways after AirVenture just from our busy time schedule, and by the time we got to the wings it was pretty cold,” Tracy said. “So, we were rolling it outside spraying it quick, rolling it back inside letting it dry. Roll it back outside to get another coat on it, roll it back it inside to let it dry again. Oh man! Heat and humidity in the summertime — it was miserable. Then by the time we got to the early fall it changed on us quick and we were freezing to death painting the thing out there. But it worked.”
Considering the size of the B-25, one can imagine how much paint it takes to cover the entire airplane. Thankfully, AkzoNobel came forward and generously donated all of the paint necessary for the project. It was instrumental in making sure the B-25 was painted in the correct military colors.
“When we first got AkzoNobel on board, we looked up our MilSpec paint codes,” Tracy said. “We sprayed those out and sent them [AkzoNobel] to try and color match it for us. … We didn’t it want flat cause flat just shows every stain and smudge and fingerprint. So, it’s kind of a semigloss sheen to it but it’s not all shiny. Another thing that helped a lot is Poly Fiber. We sent out some samples of the same color to Poly Fiber and they gave us their Poly Tone paint process top coating for the fabric to match. It really looks great and they did an awesome job matching that, you can’t even tell that there’s a different company product on the [fabric-covered] control surfaces than there is on the rest of the fuselage.”
Tracy was quick to point out that it was far from a one-man operation. He and John had a lot of help when it came to the prep and painting of the airplane.
“The biggest help was, of course, [Chapter] 237 coming and prepping it cause it needed a little bit of bodywork on some of the small little nicks and dents and scratches,” he said. “It was also such a big chore Scotch-Briting everything because the whole thing was polished and in order to get that paint to adhere you got to do the mechanical adhesion of using the Scotch-Brite to scuff it. … They also helped us mask everything … there’s a lot of stuff to mask.”
Tracy said that in addition to himself and John, the painting team included fellow EAA aircraft mechanic Aaron Dack and a representative from AkzoNobel.
“[The rep] helped a little bit and made sure we were laying it out right and using the prep process right,” Tracy said. “I’ve really been happy with the paint adhesion on everything cause it’s really sticking good — it’s a really good product. Nothing but kudos to those guys for the product they gave us for painting it.”
The restoration as a whole has been an exciting process to watch, and all of us at EAA are very much looking forward to seeing Berlin Express in the air soon with its beautiful new paint scheme.
For more about the restoration of Berlin Express, see “Restoring a Mighty Mitchell” in the June 2017 issue of EAA Sport Aviation magazine.