A remarkable project to rescue an abandoned B-25 from a remote town in northern Argentina and restore it to flying condition at a small airfield near Buenos Aires with a great team of mechanics and engineers including some volunteers, has almost achieved its goal.
LV-GXH North American TB25N Mitchell 44-31173 “BD-173” c/n 108-37248 was originally built as a B-25J but converted to a TB-25N trainer, delivered to the USAAF in 1944 but remained in the US, operating from Laurel, Massachusetts and Mitchell Field, New York, then stored at Davis Montham. In June 1961 it was sold to Enrique Denwert and came to Argentina. For its first 10 years, it was used to smuggle alcohol and cigarettes from Paraguay to Argentina mostly to Mar Del Plata, until one day in 1971 it made an emergency landing in Santiago Del Estero (some say due to running out of fuel, others due to engine failure) it was impounded and confiscated by the province of Santiago Del Estero. It was then given to the local provincial airline “Empresa Provincial de Aviación Civil” who operated it from Santiago Del Estero mostly on aerial photography until 1976 when it landed with an engine failure and was abandoned, eventually ending up near the aeroclub. There it sat at the mercy of vandals, but luckily here in the north of Argentina to the lee of the Andes the air is pretty dry, so it didn’t suffer too badly due to corrosion.
In 2010 Aerobatic pilot Gustavo Passano was thinking about what he wanted to do next and wanted to buy an interesting aircraft to fly at airshows. He went to an event at Dayton, Ohio, where a Brazilian friend was flying a Santos Dumont Demoiselle replica and they found that there was a Dolittle Raiders reunion at nearby Grimes, Champaign airport and went over there to see what was going on. Impressed with the aircraft, that was the first thought of getting something like that. Then another pilot told him there was one abandoned in Argentina at Santiago Del Estero. After then being told the same by another pilot who was from there, but based at Gral Rodriguez, he decided to go and investigate. Liking what he saw, he found that now there was the matter of sorting out the paperwork to allow him to buy the aircraft, particularly as it had come into the possession of the Provincial Government due to it being impounded. All this was sorted out by December 2010.
In the first three months of 2011, after 35 years of sitting outside at Santiago Del Estero, the B-25 was carefully dismantled and brought to Gral Rodriguez for the restoration to begin. But there was also the project to build the new hangar to do the work in, which was completed at the end of 2011, so now the work could begin in earnest.
The first job was to completely clean everything and strip all the paint, some skins removed, corrosion removed and treated with allodine, all then painted with etch primer and ontop an epoxy paint. Some skins were replaced and parts remanufactured and lots of equipment overhauled. They had a lot of help with information and some spare parts from Aerotrader at Chino and also the Sandbar Mitchell project team. The leader of the restoration project was Alberto Picallo, a very experienced mechanic who worked for Aerolineas Argentinas for many years on aircraft structures, sadly he died in Sept 2021, badly missed by the team he lead and everyone involved in the project. Two months later in September, 2011 I was back again, observing the progress on the aircraft and the hangar nearing completion.
The project is located at the General Rodriguez Airfield (GEZ) about an hour drive west from the center of Buenos Aires, it’s a fantastic large airfield with a long grass runway with many hangars on one side and an area with homes and hangars on the other side. It’s the home of EAA Argentina and where they have their annual convention/fly-in/Airshow every year. I have been visiting since the early 1990s when I met a pilot at San Fernando airport when I was looking around, having gone to Argentina on a business trip, he said I should go there for the fly-in that day and arranged someone to fly me over there. It was great, so I went to the fly-in a couple of times on holiday. Then when I became an airline pilot and could fly there with work, I always tried to bid for a trip during the fly-in, so I managed to visit the project several times over the years and see lots of progress.
In March 2013 the cockpit area had been stripped and cleaned and the old glazing removed, the wings were being worked on with a skin removed, cleaning up, corrosion removal and treating and then repainting.
By March 2015 the cockpit area was being worked on with replacement structure around the windows and also the area for the upper turret opened up again. Inside was all cleaned up and painted and the new instrument panel in place ready for items to be re-installed, similarly the rear fuselage shell. The tailplane was trial assembled with some skins already re-fitted. The wings were still a major job, being cleaned up and put back together and the center section was partly dismantled.
In March 2016 we could see a lot of progress with the rear gunner area being rebuilt, which had been removed some time previously and similarly the top turret being fitted. The center section was now coming together and one outer wing mostly completed. Many components had also been overhauled and were starting to come back.
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By early 2017 the fuselage and center section were assembled back together and the aircraft put on its landing gear. It was amazing to see it on the gear for the first time when I visited the project in December 2017, by now the tail was also completed and installed. The landing gear looked brand new, which of course it was newly overhauled. Some of the systems were starting to be put in place and in the cockpit the rudder pedals and control columns were installed.
The nose art had also now been applied! This is an Argentine stylised version of the 1930s American cartoon character Betty Boop, she is holding a bomb representing the bombs dropped by the “Tokyo Raiders” and carrying a tray with whisky and cigarettes representing Huaira Bajo’s smuggling past. The name Huaira Bajo means “Light wind” and was painted on the aircraft at some time during its early years in Argentina and has been retained but in a different style.
I next visited in March 2019 again for the EAA fly-in and lots more great progress in the 15 months since I’d last seen the B-25, by now all the cockpit glazing was in place and the newly overhauled engines and propellers had been installed. The Wright R-2600 engines were overhauled by local expert Jose Maria Dagnillo. The outer wings were also now structurally complete with everything cleaned, protected, and painted, and skins re-installed.
January 2020 was my next visit, and by now the outer wings had been installed and the aircraft had been briefly towed outside for the first time. A lot more work in the cockpit too, with the center console of engine controls now installed as well as one of the seats fitted. Work was now mostly fitting systems, control cables, hydraulic lines, and wiring.
My last visit was March 2022 when Huaira Bajo was displayed outside the hangar for the duration of the EAA convention fly-in, now looking like it was almost ready to fly. There was still a fair bit of wiring to do, some hydraulic systems, but most of that was done and the instruments needed to be installed.
I’m looking forward to seeing it again in March 2024, but it has recently been announced that the project is for sale on various Facebook sites and on the Barnstormer website. Its been a fantastic project to follow with the team always happy to show me their progress during my visits. They have done a fantastic job, and whatever happens to it, it will be a real tribute to their dedication and hard work. I just hope that even if its sold outside the country, it gets to be finished and flown here at General Rodriguez where all the hard work has been done and so many people have been following its progress. See more pictures and commentary at the Facebook and Instagram pages.
