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Alaskan Restoration Adventure

Gemini Sparkle

Key Takeaways:

  • Vintage aircraft collector Greg Herrick is undertaking a challenging and costly mission to salvage a rare 1930 Sikorsky S-39C flying boat from the bottom of an Alaskan lake.
  • The aircraft, which crashed in 1958 and is deeply buried in silt, has resisted previous retrieval attempts due to technical difficulties and unfavorable weather.
  • Herrick plans a new, sophisticated salvage operation next spring with a specialized team and remotely controlled equipment to extract and lift the airplane.
  • Despite significant financial investment and the extreme difficulties, Herrick remains determined to retrieve, restore, and fly the vintage Sikorsky.
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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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