By Jim Roberts
Fans of vintage and warbird aircraft will find an aircraft with the DNA of both at this year’s EAA AirVenture Oshkosh. Restored by the father and son team of Bill and Will Kientz, a rare TEMCO T-35A Buckaroo will be in the Training Command area in Warbirds Country until Wednesday, when it will move to the VAA Red Barn for the rest of the week. And the path the Buckaroo took to get here is as remarkable as the aircraft itself.
Flash back 80 years to the TEMCO (Texas Engineering and Manufacturing Co.) plant in Grand Prairie, Texas. Following TEMCO’s acquisition of Globe Aircraft, GC-1B Swifts are rolling off the line. Then in 1949 the Air Force goes shopping for a new primary trainer. TEMCO engineers go to work on a tandem-seat aircraft based on the Swift, but featuring more robust construction and a 165-hp Franklin engine. Designated the YT-35A (Y for “experimental”), the aircraft was nicknamed “Buckaroo” in homage to its Texas roots.
Beechcraft won the USAF contract with its T-34 Mentor, but the Buckaroo got a second chance. According to Swift historian Stanley Thomas, in 1953 TEMCO converted a Douglas C-54 for Saudia Arabia’s king. This led to an order for 10 T-35A trainers for the fledgling Saudi air force. The airplanes sported a .30-caliber machine gun in each wing and 10 underwing rockets. Three of the airplanes were lost to accidents, and eventually the survivors were relegated to storage, baking beneath the desert sun at Jeddah Air Base.
Fast-forward to 1976, and Bill Kientz was on assignment in Jeddah with Trans World Airlines. A member of the International Swift Association (now the Swift Museum Foundation), Bill spotted the derelict Buckaroos and immediately recognized their historical significance. After some serious lobbying by Bill on behalf of the Swift Association, the Saudi air force donated a single T-35A and enough spare parts to build a second bird. In return, the Swift Association agreed to restore one aircraft in Saudi air force livery for display in the United States.
In 1977, 13 crates were loaded onto a Saudi C-130, flown to Dobbins AFB, in Georgia, and trucked to Swift headquarters in Athens, Tennessee. A decade later, after thousands of hours of work by Swift Association volunteers, the “Saudi Buck” was named Best Military Classic and received a Silver Wrench Award at Oshkosh ’87. For his extraordinary efforts in acquiring the aircraft, the Swift Association rewarded Bill Kientz with most of the parts not used in the project; those parts, along with others that were later fabricated, are what you see today.
If you think the Kientz Buckaroo was fortunate to survive decades of exposure to desert sun and salt air from the nearby Red Sea, wait till you hear what it went through at Bill’s home base, Creve Coeur Airport in St. Louis. As Will related, the project suffered two floods: one in 1986 and another in 1993 when he was 4 years old. After the 1986 flood Bill built a shelf 18 feet above the hangar floor and stored all the Buckaroo parts up there, but the 1993 flood topped that. Will said, “I vaguely remember some of it because my dad was crazy enough to bring me out with him, and I remember being on the boat and there was about 2, 3 feet of hangar space showing.” Twenty-five years later while working on the project, Will recalled, “When I cleaned out that first wing I was pulling out handfuls of mud … Missouri mud.”
Bill started work on the restoration in the ’70s, and it was on-again and off-again for years. Will said, “We always talked about it as a kid growing up. When you’re 10, we’re going to work on the T-35. When you’re a teenager, we’re going to work on the T-35. When you’re 15, 16 …. It just never happened. And a lot of it was my dad was supporting me. He wanted to make sure that I had a successful future and career.”
Finally, after landing an airline job in 2018, Will realized it was now or never. “I was on reserve, and I was just sitting there thinking, ‘Dad’s getting older. Shoot. Why not now?’ So I talked to Dad and I thought that, you know, we had a wing covered in Cosmoline. And I thought, oh, cool. All I gotta do is clean this thing up, wipe off the Cosmoline. I’m good at polishing … should be good to go. Little did I know.”
Reality set in, and Will realized, “Dad’s not as fast as he used to be. I don’t have the time off that I thought I’d have.” So they moved the project to Athens, Tennessee, and put it in the capable hands of Scott Anderson, a noted Swift craftsman. Scott did the majority of the airframe restoration with Will helping whenever he could. Will said, “Scott ran the riveting gun, and I was the bucker. I bucked a ton of rivets on that airplane.”
With the airframe complete in 2023 the Buckaroo moved to Tailwinds Aviation Solutions in Perry, Georgia, where Brian Ellingham and his crew completed the restoration. Will was again hands-on, recalling, “I was sleeping in a freaking van down by the river to save money. No joke, like a Dodge Grand Caravan with a bed in the back of it.”
Bill and Will spared no effort to breathe authenticity into their Buckaroo. The 210-hp Continental IO-360-ES engine is painted “Franklin gray” like the original 165-hp Franklin. They sourced two replica .30-caliber machine guns, and machinist friends produced 10 2-1/4-inch replica rockets. The gun sight was a rare find, and Will described making the deal with warbird legend Jay Wisler: “He’s like, I will sell you this gun sight, but it goes with your project. You cannot sell this gun sight separate from your project. And so I was like, okay. Deal. I mean, it was a crusty thing, and I spent probably a month rebuilding it.”
Nearly 50 years after its rescue from the desert, the Buckaroo made its maiden flight in Georgia on April 8, 2026, with warbird expert Kelly Mahon at the controls. It was a full-circle moment for Kelly, since once as a young man he flew the Swift Association’s “Saudi Buck.”
Of flying the Buckaroo, Will said, “It’s a childhood dream come true. I grew up in the back seat of the [Swift] museum airplane and flying around with Dad. So it’s kind of cool to see it come full circle.” When Will got the airplane home to Creve Coeur, his first mission was to take Bill on an aerial tour of the St. Louis Gateway Arch. Will remembered, “He just kind of took it in. He was pretty quiet. You know, my dad, he’s a man of many words and few words. So when we got done he gave me a big hug and we both shed a tear, and I’ll leave it at that.”
Today the Kientz Buckaroo sits proudly on display at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, and you’ll probably find Will alongside, eager to share its story.
