Rebuilt World War II training plane returns to sky over Modesto

About 70 years after being used as an Army Air Corps training plane, a Vultee BT-13 Valiant just rebuilt by an Orinda man at the Modesto Airport returned to the sky last week – fittingly, on Veterans Day.

That “maiden flight” of Jason Reid’s new “toy” was so highly anticipated by him, pilot Kevin Morgan Smith and friends who have followed Reid’s work as he rebuilt it that the two-seater was taken up again Thursday. And Friday. And Saturday. And Sunday. On Sunday morning, as Smith soared around a gorgeously cloudy sky above the Modesto Airport, Reid was assuring a couple of other friends that they’d soon be getting rides, too.

“Everybody’s been watching the progress for five years,” said the 58-year-old contractor, whose skill comes from years of owning a Jaguar and Rolls-Royce repair shop and restoring about 50 of his own vintage cars.

Five years of weekends went into the Vultee, which was in pieces, spread between three hangars at the airport, when Reid bought it from the Commemorative Air Force there.

Never, he said, did he hit a point where he doubted he’d get the job done. “Most people start something like this and never finish it,” he said. “You have dreamers, doers and bulls---ers.”

As another measure of the time he put into his project, Reid started letting his hair grow and vowed not to cut it until the plane left the ground. Now sporting a long ponytail, he said he just might keep it. “I kind of like it now,” he said, “and I don’t know if Locks of Love would want it anyway. I have hair that’s hard to brush.”

Scott Naylor, standing with Reid as Smith flew on Sunday, is among those who followed his friend’s work, and said he never doubted this day would come. “He’s a student pilot, building his first plane, and it’s a 70-year-old plane,” Naylor said. “I’ve been flying for 41 years and I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s amazing.”

Reid started work to become a pilot 25 years ago, but that effort got sidelined, he said. He’s back on track now and figures to have his license in about six months, “if that long.”

Will he be taking the plane to air shows and other aviation gatherings when he’s behind the controls? “That’s the whole purpose,” Reid said.

The plane is among an elite group of fewer than 50 airworthy BT-13s in existence. It’s been repainted in its original Air Corps colors, and his restoration has it “all as it was when it left the plant in Downey.”

Reid plans to take it next year to an air show in Oshkosh, Wis., and the opening of a WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots) museum in Mineral Wells, Texas – not far from where the plane was based, in Waco.

The aircraft “flies like a cream puff,” Reid said.

Smith got her up to about 150 mph Sunday as Reid looked on. “The plane’s fully aerobatic,” Reid said, “but I tell you what, I respect the 70-year-old aluminum, so we’re not going to put it through that kind of stress.”

As he’s sat behind Smith on the first flights, “it’s my job to look and listen for things, his job to fly,” Reid said. He does it “all by feel, all by ear. You get her up there and you trim her out for straight and level,” see how she flies, then you land her for adjustments, he said. There’s not much that can be adjusted during flight.

Flying the plane has been a joy for Smith. “He did a very good job,” he said of Reid. “I wouldn’t have gotten involved if he hadn’t built it as well as he did.”

Aside from getting his pilot’s license to enjoy flying the BT-13 himself, Reid said he doesn’t have specific plans for a new project. “I’ll get something else that converts more cash into noise.”

For a Bee story from January, when Reid still was working on the plane, go to www.modbee.com/news/local/article7458911.html.

This story was originally published November 15, 2015 at 7:07 PM with the headline "Rebuilt World War II training plane returns to sky over Modesto."