Enthusiast restores 10th warplane
The Stinson L-5 Sentinel had been slowly deteriorating in a hangar near Montreal for more than a decade when Bruce MacRitchie found it.
Six years later, he has restored it to its former glory.
Despite its condition and the huge amount of work required to launch the old plane into the sky again, the 84-year-old pilot and airplane mechanic knew he had to have it.
It was one of about 3,000 of the vintage planes that were built specifically for the U.S. military, and one of only three registered in Canada.
“They were used all over the campaigns in World War II and also in Korea,” MacRitchie says. “It was an interesting airplane.”
The planes were equipped with oversized engines, huge windows that rattled as they soared through the sky, and some were equipped with large openings on the fuselage where injured soldiers could be carried to safety.
“They were used all over the place — used to rescue people and for artillery spotting and that type of thing.”
Although there had been considerable interest in the old planes following the wars in which they were used, MacRitchie says airworthy Stinsons are becoming increasingly scarce.
He wasn’t ready to give up on that 75-year-old plane he found sitting in that hangar at the Mascouche airport.
He’d previously restored nine vintage warplanes during his long career — including the T-28 Trojan he used to fly overhead during Remembrance Day ceremonies — and he was confident he could do the same for the Stinson that rolled off the assembly line on Nov. 16, 1943.
“I trucked it back here because it hadn’t flown in years and did a tremendous amount of work on it, engine and air frame,” he says.
MacRitchie describes his hobby of restoring vintage warplanes as a labour of love — “or stupidity, I’m never quite sure which.”
The Stinson has been restored to its original condition — with a few additions such as black and white invasion stripes on its wood and fabric wings and fuselage, in recognition of the role similar Stinson planes played during the Normandy D-Day landings in 1944.
He says the old plane “flies very nicely,” although he hasn’t had as many opportunities to take off from Niagara Central Dorothy Rungeling Airport in Pelham. He finished restoring it too late in the season to fly it on warm days, and the plane isn’t equipped with a heater.
“Now I have to pick my days to fly it,” he says.
MacRitchie is researching the history of the plane, trying to determine conflicts in which it may have been involved. But tracing the history of a military plane is “a monster” of an undertaking, he says.
“I’m still pursuing it and I will find out eventually where it did serve.”
In addition to doing his part to keep vintage aircraft flying to be enjoyed by future generations, MacRitchie has pitched in significantly to help train the next generation of people working in
the industry — he recently donated $1 million as well as two planes and other items to Centennial College in Toronto.
More than 30 years ago, MacRitchie set up an aviation technician scholarship at Centennial in memory of his older brother Doug, who was killed in a plane crash in 1980. He has returned to the college every year since, to present the scholarship to the graduating student of the year.
“Last year when I presented the award, a young man came up to me and said, ‘I have to say hello for my grandfather.’ I asked why, and he said, ‘Because he worked for you in 1966,’” MacRitchie recalls, laughing.