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Alaskan Restoration Adventure

Gemini Sparkle

Key Takeaways:

  • Greg Herrick, an avid collector, is determined to retrieve a rare 1930 Sikorsky S-39C flying boat that has been submerged in an Alaskan lake since 1958 for his vintage aircraft collection.
  • His previous costly salvage attempts, including one costing $150,000, have failed due to the aircraft being deeply buried in silt and unforeseen environmental challenges like soft lake ice.
  • Despite significant setbacks and mounting expenses (over $250,000 for the next attempt), Herrick plans a third attempt with a specialized team and equipment, driven by his unwavering passion to restore and fly the historic aircraft.
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||| |—|—| | | | Greg Herrick, an avid vintage aircraft collector and founder of the Aviation Book Company, is pursuing the next great airplane for his collection-a 1930 Sikorsky S-39C flying boat. There’s just one hitch: it’s sitting on the bottom of a lake in Alaska.

When he began his quest for an S-39, Herrick found three of the airplanes, one in a museum, one in an unsalvageable heap and one that originally belonged to Victor Lenhart, who crashed it in Twin Lakes, Alaska, in 1958. But the National Park Service, which had been surveying the area at the time of the crash, rescued Lenhart and managed to scribble down the bearings of where the Sikorsky sank. In 1998, Lenhart and Herrick returned to the crash site.

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