Page 9 - September 2019

McIlmoyle’s hand skills are coming in handy and he has quickly
become adept at building the necessary parts from scratch
using only the plans.
“After studying the blueprints, you get all your measurements
and you just start cutting aluminum and bending, drilling
holes, deburring, clecoing and riveting. Right now, I am in the
process of building the vertical stabilizer and have about 80
per cent on that. Once that’s done, I will build the rudders and
we will have the tail end of the airplane pretty well finished. “

P-39 UPDATE: ONE VOLUNTEER’S
LIFELONG DREAM
by Steve Finkelman, AAM Communications Coordinator
Dave McIlmoyle has
been waiting 50 years to
get his hands on a P-39
Airacobra. Now his
dream has come true.

He is a key member of
the restoration crew at
the Alberta Aviation
Museum working on the
P-39 project. McIlmoyle volunteeres in the restoration shop every Tuesday,

The project will rebuild a museum-quality P-39 to Thursday, and Saturday along with about a half-dozen others.
“It’s a new experience, I learn something new here every day.”
represent the more than 4,000 Airacobras and P-63
The project is still a long way from being complete, as the
Kingcobras that passed through Edmonton on their way
to Alaska and on to the Soviet Union during the Second pictures indicate, and the museum is still looking for additional
skilled tradespeople. You can volunteer here if you are
World War.
McIlmoyle’s association with the aircraft started in 1969 interested in helping out. You can check out Dave’s work, and
when he moved to Watson Lake, Yukon as a the work of others on the project, Tuesdays and Thursdays
when volunteer area is open to the public.
meteorological technician.
“I learned about the Lend Lease Program and the
thousands of P-39s that came through Watson lake,” he
says. “Numerous ones crashed in the region and I was
always on the lookout for pieces. I never did find
anything.”
A private pilot, McIlmoyle rebuilt several aircraft while in
the North, including a Piper Arrow and a Piper PA-12.
But he was always on the lookout for a P-39.
“I eventually built one out of wood for the local tourism
authority and it stood at the Watson Lake Sign Post
along the Alaska Highway. Weather finally got to it. But
it lasted eight years.”
His P-39 obsession was eventually to be satisfied.

“After 49 years in the Yukon we retired to Edmonton Drop by and see how this team is creating history virtually
and last September at the Open Cockpit Day I saw they
from scratch.
were rebuilding a P-39. Well I felt I had to get involved.”