After a protracted
legal battle with the Navy, Cralley is finally the legal owner of the
remains of a Brewster F3A-1 Corsair. But it took an act of Congress
for him to receive title of the plane.
At this point, it’s
even hard to call it a plane, but rather airplane parts. In fact, it
resembles the P-38 nicknamed Glacier
Girl that first arrived at EAA AirVenture in 1993 as parts after
spending 50 years under the Greenland ice cap. The completely restored
Glacier Girl is back this
year and getting lots of attention at AeroShell Square.
Cralley and his Corsair
are located in the Warbirds area on the EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2005
grounds, across from the Warbirds store.
"One of the reasons I
brought the airplane here is that I’m passionate about preserving
anything that used to fly or might fly again," he says. He hopes his
Corsair will promote awareness to preserving naval aviation history
before it is too late.
"We are at a point with
naval aviation that if we don’t do something soon, these aircraft will
disappear forever," Cralley says. "They are dissolving as we speak.
There are more than 100 naval airplanes in Lake Michigan, and zebra
mussels are destroying them. They won’t be there forever since their
rate of deterioration is exponential."
But he also hopes his
presence will cause a change in naval policy, allowing the private
sector to take ownership of downed WWII planes because it has the
skills and resources to recover a part of naval history.
Cralley salvaged the
Brewster Corsair from a North Carolina swamp in January 1991 and spent
years trying to locate parts, when in early 2000 the Navy threatened
legal action if he didn’t return the plane to the Navy.
He didn’t, maintaining
that he had legally retrieved it. The Navy filed a civil lawsuit in
March 2004 against him, which Cralley first found out about when
contacted by a newspaper reporter. The resulting story was picked up
by the wire service and went around the world, gaining Cralley
grassroots support.
In May 2004, U.S. Rep.
Walter Jones (R-North Carolina), whose district includes the original
crash site, got involved and introduced a bill directing the Navy to
give Cralley the plane. Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minnesota) introduced the
Senate version.
The bill became law in
October 2004, but it took six more months for both sides to come to
terms.
Cralley says he has
been enthralled with aviation since he took his first ride as a
2-year-old, sitting in a Cessna 170 on his father’s lap. By 15, he was
salvaging parts from World War II planes, and by 19, he was actively
seeking WWII airplane wrecks.
That’s when he first
heard about the Brewster Corsair, in fact. "It was in the same area I
was looking to recover a Thunderbolt," he says. "But it had a busted
center section, and I didn’t think it was worth retrieving."
Then in 1990, he and
friends started talking, and the Corsair came up in discussion again.
Cralley decided to go take a closer look, along with his father, a
WWII Navy veteran.
He decided it wasn’t as
bad as he had originally thought. "We worked two days and flew it
out," he says before adding, "under a helicopter."
Since then, he’s
continued to search for Corsair parts. But sometimes he’s found parts
nearby,
"A man had a Corsair
engine in his barn about 30 minutes from me. He called and said I
could have it, but only if I came personally to get it," Cralley says.
"I was there that afternoon."
Cralley intends to
start restoration by building the tail cone, while continuing to look
for parts. He will do most of the work himself, but welcomes any help.
"Unfortunately, I
haven’t had a long line of volunteers so far," he says. "But then I
kept a pretty low profile for a while."
He admits it will take
a lifetime to renovate. "And if I don’t get it done, I have two
sons—Brent, 13, and Aaron, 16—who might be able to accomplish it."
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