By Emme Hornung
EAA’s collection of Steve Wittman aircraft designs can now be considered complete, with a museum-worthy re-creation of the legendary Buster on display in the EAA Aviation Museum Air Racing Gallery. The primary build team, Jim Casper, Mike Butler, and Jim Cunningham, will dive into the multi-year project during the next EAA Aviation Museum Speaker Series on Thursday, August 20, at 7 p.m.
Wittman’s Buster is a one-off design that actually started its life as Chief Oshkosh, one of Wittman’s original air racers that was damaged in a forced landing in 1939. The wrecked aircraft hung in storage throughout World War II.
After the war, Wittman and his protégé Bill Brennand rebuilt and altered the airplane to do recreational and aerobatic flying in. “It looked very different from the way it did in the ‘30s, so they gave it a different name,” said Jim Cunningham, historian and build assistant of the project.
Realizing Buster met the requirements to race in a new class of the Cleveland Air Races, Wittman and Brennand upgraded the aircraft to make it faster. Without ever even flying a practice racecourse, Brennand won in a landslide in the 1947 Cleveland Air Races.
“He was flying against Lockheed test pilots, air racers from the 1930s that he read about growing up, and he beat all of them hands down in that airplane,” Cunningham said.
Buster and Brennand went on to have a distinguished air racing career in the 1940s and early ‘50s, with many more upgrades and alterations along the way. Wittman later donated Buster to the National Air and Space Museum (NASM), where it’s been on display ever since.
In the 1980s, longtime EAA member and airplane restorer Dave Broadfoot restored Buster for NASM. Out of gratitude, Wittman gifted the original wings and canopy used on Buster in 1947 to Broadfoot. And because Wittman never made plans or drawings for Buster, Broadfoot took the opportunity to take extensive measurements of the airframe with hopes of building his own replica one day.
Though Broadfoot never got the chance to build the replica himself, he wanted to make sure the original wings did not just end up hanging on a wall somewhere, so he solicited members of EAA Chapter 252 in Oshkosh, including Jim Casper, to see about building a re-creation of Buster for the EAA Aviation Museum.
Casper wrote the original proposal for support to EAA in 2010, but due to various factors, the project didn’t truly take off until 2019 when Mike Butler, Chapter 252 member and antique aircraft restorer, asked if he could take on the project.
“If [Butler] hadn’t have picked up this project, it never would have happened. He was the critical person,” Cunningham said.
Butler was especially helpful in turning Broadfoot’s measurements and drawings into actual airplane parts, which required years of just looking at pictures and data before anything was built.
Cunningham did much of the historical research on Wittman, Brennand, and Buster to ensure accuracy. He also joined Butler and Casper in the hangar on build days to assist, making sure they had all tools necessary and lending an extra hand as needed.
Casper, a longtime EAA volunteer with a craftsman background, in addition to working with Broadfoot and EAA back in the beginning, also built key parts like the propeller spinner.
A handful of other chapter members lent a hand, as well as Charlie Becker, EAA’s director of chapters and homebuilding. Becker was instrumental in getting support and supplies from EAA and connecting the team to craftsmen to help with painting the detailed markings and handcrafting the nose bowl.
The last two years of the project saw the trio in the hangar three to five days a week, and they completed it just in time to display at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2025. In addition to building the airframe from scratch, they recovered and painted the original wings to look as they did in 1947. The canopy, flying wires, and parts of the cowling are original, as well. A nonflyable re-creation, there is no fuel or electrical system, though it does have an engine core.
“The canopy and parts of the cowling, they’re kind of beat up because we did not want to repaint those. We wanted to display those as they were originally,” Cunningham said.
“It was a very remarkable experience to be able to work on it,” Cunningham said.
Buster was legendary in its prime, and this re-creation of it keeps the history alive right here in its birthplace of Oshkosh. Join us to learn more about its incredible history and the project from Cunningham, Casper, and Butler.
Thursday’s presentation is free for EAA members and youths, and just $5 for nonmembers.
If you’re unable to attend, all Speaker Series presentations are recorded and will be available to members to watch here at a later date.
Speaker Series is supported by Alro Steel, Capital Credit Union, Community First Credit Union, Cozumel Mexican Grill, Kwik Trip, Orthopedic & Sports Medicine Specialists, Pilotsmith, Sargento, and The Taqueria.