WWII plane 'like a big jigsaw puzzle'  
 By GORDON DELANEY / Valley Bureau

 GREENWOOD--As a retired aircraft electrician and specialist in armaments, Colin Ainsworth has been around a lot of planes. 

But he's never built one from the bottom up - until now, that is. 

Colin Ainsworth heads a team restoring a 1941 Avro Anson for the Greenwood Military Aviation Museum. About 340 of the aircraft were built in Amherst during the Second World War.

GORDON DELANEY / Valley Bureau

Mr. Ainsworth heads up an eight-member team that's rebuilding a 1941 Avro Anson, a two-engine aircraft used for coastal patrols and training of aircrews during the Second World War.

The project began in 2003, and the aircraft is expected to be complete in 2007 and displayed in the Greenwood Military Aviation Museum in time for the 100th anniversary of flight in Canada in 2009.

"It's like a big jigsaw puzzle," said Mr. Ainsworth, who is joined on the team by Ernie Killen, Al Sheppard, Peter Miller, Chuck Calder, Mike Dandur, Keith Brenson and Gerry Aucoin.

The team has years of experience, with aircraft mechanics, a flight engineer, radar controller and an air traffic controller.

The main portion of the aircraft was found in Alberta by museum curator Brian Nelson. At one time, it sat in a farmer's field after it had been sold for parts following the war.

The aircraft frame and other parts were flown to 14 Wing Greenwood in a Hercules aircraft. The nose section was found in a farmer's field in Saskatchewan, where it was home to a nest of rattlesnakes, Mr. Ainsworth said Monday.

"We think about that every time we reach our hand in there," he said.

The Anson aircraft was one of 340 built by the Amherst plant of the Canada Car Foundry during the war. Most were sent to the western provinces, where they were used for training aircrews under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan.

The aircraft Mr. Ainsworth and his team are restoring was sold to a farmer for parts for $50. It was later moved to the Byron Reynolds Museum near Calgary.

The team has so far spent more than 4,000 man-hours restoring the aircraft. The wood and steel tubular frame is mostly done, as are the tail assembly and one of the two Jacobs engines.

The aircraft, 12.5 metres long with a 17-metre wing span, will be restored according to its original design, right down to the cockpit and working flight controls.

"Everything will be authentic," Mr. Ainsworth said. But the plane will not be flown.

It will join the museum's many other static aircraft displays, including an Argus, a Lancaster and a Spitfire, said Mr. Nelson.

Restoration of other planes is also in the works. 

This article appeared in the June 28, 2005 edition of the Halifax Chronicle Herald.  Used with permission.