The team behind a museum-quality re-creation of Steve Wittman’s legendary air racer Buster will discuss the multiyear project during the EAA Aviation Museum Speaker Series on Thursday, August 20th, 2026 at 7 p.m. The completed aircraft is now displayed in the museum’s Air Racing Gallery, filling an important place in EAA’s collection of Wittman-designed aircraft. Primary builders Jim Casper, Mike Butler, and Jim Cunningham will present the history of Buster and describe the work involved in bringing the re-creation to life.
The story of Buster began with Chief Oshkosh, one of Wittman’s original racing aircraft. After the airplane was damaged during a forced landing in 1939, its remains were placed in storage throughout WWII. Following the war, Wittman and his protégé, Bill Brennand, rebuilt and modified the aircraft for recreational and aerobatic flying. “It looked very different from the way it did in the ’30s, so they gave it a different name,” said Cunningham, who served as the project’s historian and an assistant builder. When Wittman and Brennand realized that Buster met the requirements for a new racing class at the Cleveland National Air Races, they modified the aircraft to improve its performance. Despite having never flown a practice racecourse, Brennand won the 1947 event by a wide margin.
“He was flying against Lockheed test pilots, air racers from the 1930s that he read about growing up, and he beat all of them hands down in that airplane,” Cunningham said. The team incorporated original components into the re-creation and preserved their appearance whenever possible. “The canopy and parts of the cowling, they’re kind of beat up because we did not want to repaint those,” Cunningham said. “We wanted to display those as they were originally.”
“It was a very remarkable experience to be able to work on it,” he added. Following EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2025, the completed re-creation was placed on permanent display in the EAA Aviation Museum’s Air Racing Gallery. Its presence in Oshkosh helps preserve the legacy of one of the city’s most celebrated aircraft designers and racing pilots. Thursday’s presentation is free for EAA members and youth. Admission for nonmembers is $5. The program will also be recorded and made available later to EAA members through the museum’s Speaker Series video collection. The EAA Aviation Museum Speaker Series is supported by Alro Steel, Capital Credit Union, Community First Credit Union, Cozumel Mexican Grill, Kwik Trip, Orthopedic & Sports Medicine Specialists, Pilotsmith, Sargento, and The Taqueria. For more information about the EAA Museum in Oshkosh, WI, visit www.eaa.org/eaa-museum
