Do you need your Curtiss JN4 Jenny restored? Or are you looking for impossible to find pre-WWI aircraft parts? Look no further than Blue Swallow Aircraft, LLC.
Like most of us with a love of old airplanes, Blue Swallow Aircraft’s owner John Gaertner grew up building model airplanes but was fortunate enough for this hobby to turn into building the real thing.
John’s greatest break came when he earned an internship at the National Air & Space Museum while still in high school. This opportunity exposed him to the world of antique aircraft and more importantly, an amazing library full of old books about how aircraft were built. He credits his friends at the Smithsonian making his dreams come alive.
John started Blue Swallow Aircraft in 1989 while still in graduate school. It started as a model kit business but soon grew into building full size aircraft along with aircraft parts. He named his company Blue Swallow Aircraft as he it felt it had a great, British ring to it.
John’s earned two degrees (a BA in History and MAT in History and Education) in preparation for a career in the aviation museum industry. He also worked in a blacksmith’s shop with a master blacksmith and his father to learn the art and science of metallurgy. In addition he has also taken courses in welding, electronics, computer programming and CAD (computer aided design) to provide the skills necessary to rebuild antique aircraft.
John has also worked for TWA and such distinguished museums as the Virginia Aviation Museum, the National Air & Space Museum and finally as Curator of the EAA AirVenture Museum in Oshkosh, WI. All the time he was honing his aircraft building skills and in 1996 he began his first WWI aircraft project.
Blue Swallow Aircraft has completed dozens of major project from aircraft restorations to building sets of wings for the amazing, all wooden, aerobatic aircraft, like the Falco, to restoring and building brand new Curtiss Jenny’s. Most end up in private hands but two museum projects will be announced in the coming months.
Blue Swallow Aircraft provides any services necessary for the construction and or restoration of any pre WW II aircraft. They have the ability to do wood work, metal work, castings, engineering, fabrication traditional covering in linen and synthetic materials and even creating long lost parts that people feel could not be reproduced in this day and age. They make all their own fittings and parts, whether machined, extruded or cast.
Blue Swallow Aircraft, LLC is a small, dedicated company with 3 employees that performs restorations and aircraft construction that only some of the very largest, well-funded companies can do. Few people are able or willing to take the time to create the exact, authentic reproduction parts or entire planes like Blue Swallow Aircraft does. It takes a level of dedication that most people just are not able to do or afford unless they are backed by major financial movers and shakers. They are not that kind of company. They do this work because it is what we believe in.
Check out Blue Swallow Aircraft’s list of services and DVDs on historical aircraft restoration at their website here.
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