Need for speed
Norman man is preparing jet to soar again
NORMAN — Jay Duechting’s favorite retreat doesn’t have an 80-inch television, a wet bar or a fancy pool table.
His refreshment comes from a small refrigerator filled with bottled water. The only form of electronic entertainment is a radio blaring “Sweet Child O’ Mine” by Guns N’ Roses. It can be hot there this time of year, and it’s almost always a little noisy.
And yet it’s there, inside a small hangar at Max Westheimer Airport in Norman, where you’ll usually find Duechting, 66, of Norman, tinkering with his Czech-made military jet.
While a lot of guys his age buy Harleys or sports cars, he needed something a little quicker.
“With a jet you’re talking about a whole different world,” Duechting said. “You’re talking about a world that goes by a lot faster.” That suits him just fine. A long-ago flight with an instructor while a student at the University of Indiana fostered Duechting’s love of flying.
Duechting has 17,000 hours of flight time, all of it in jets. He flew T-38 trainers in the 1970s for the Air Force and later served as a test pilot for the B-1 bomber program, his last military job before he retired as a lieutenant colonel in the mid-1990s.
In 13 years flying for Continental, and later, United Airlines, he flew the DC-10 and almost every variant of the 737.
“I haven’ t flow na prop airplane since 1972,” Due ch ting said. “It’s been all jet.”
For Duechting, a jet cockpit is like a comfortable chair you never want to get rid of.
“I loved flying at night,” he said of his airline days. “It was quiet and picturesque. Complete calmness. There weren’t any problems in the world.”
Ease of flying
Duechting likes his aircraft, the Aero L-39 Albatros, in part, because it’s easy to fly, a common trait among planes designed to be trainers, the L-39’s original role. The Albatros served as the primary trainer for the Soviet Air Force during the Cold War.
“It’s virtually dummy proof,” he said.
Sticks protrude from each wing and the nose to confirm the landing gear is down. If electronics fail, an auxiliary power unit deploys from beneath the aircraft. If there’s too much velocity, speed brakes deploy. And it’s rugged.
“It was built for the tundra of the Soviet Union,” he said. “If you flamed out, you could land it almost anywhere.”
Former military fighter jets and trainers in the hands of civilians isn’t new. There are about a 1,000 vintage jet fighter owners in the United States and the numbers are growing all the time, according to the Marylandbased Classic Jet Aircraft Association.
Most owners are former military pilots or have extensive civil aviation jet experience, the organization said.
Duechting’s jet has a storied history. Built in 1977 — the engine and almost all the parts are original — it flew in the East German Air Force before being sold after the Cold War ended.
“They had wing commanders literally selling aircraft right off the field so they could pay their men,” Duechting said. “That’s where this plane came from.”
A U.K. company purchased the jet for military contract work. It later appeared in the 1997 James Bond film “Tomorrow Never Dies,” briefly shown fully armed while taxiing.
It hasn’t flown since 2007. When Duechting traveled to The Netherlands to kick the tires after finding the plane on an internet search, he was worried about it having been in storage for a decade.
“In my experience, that’s usually cause for concern,” he said. “Especially given that they don’t store things like we do here.”
But to Duechting, the jet might as well have been a ‘57 Chevy only driven to church on Sundays by a little old lady. It was pristine and too good to pass up.
He took photographs, even microscopic images of the inside of the engine, looking for problems.
“It looked great,” he said. “There wasn’t any corrosion on the aircraft.”
Getting the plane here
He test started the engine and then had the performance data analyzed by an engineer in the United States. It all checked out. Duechting decided to pull the trigger.
Broken down into parts, the L-39 traveled from The Netherlands to Houston by ship and then by truck to Norman.
An engineer from the Netherlands company that owned the plane made the trip over and together, with two more mechanics, they worked with Duechting putting the pieces back together.
“People said it would take us two months, but we all got together and were able to do it in five days,” he said. “We fired it up and it was perfect.”
But it’s not airborne just yet. Duechting is still sorting out issues with the FAA, which has to approve his maintenance plan before he can take the L-39 up.
The lengthy process included getting Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives certification that the plane was fully demilitarized when it arrived in the United States. Software and hardware used in the plane’s former military mission were removed.
The two ejection seats are also a problem. The Federal Aviation Administration won’t let him fly with them active because there are no maintenance guidelines on the use of ejection seats in civilian aircraft.
For that reason, the seats won’t be functional when he takes to the air for the first time in the L-39. He said he and the FAA have agreed to revisit the issue.
The list of friends wanting a ride gets longer every week. And the L-39 is already well-known by folks at the airport. The University of Oklahoma’s flight school is nearby and students have popped in to ask him about the striking, battleship-gray two-seater, which stands out among less-intimidating prop planes and private jets.
“I’ve had it out of the hangar a couple of times to wash it down and people will stop by,” he said. “I’ve had some of the OU students ask me about it. I always tell them if they’re walking by and the doors are open to come on in. They’re always welcome.”
So, what’s he going to do with a plane that can fly up 37,000 feet and zip along about 500 mph?
“Have fun,” he said.