Local College Student Plans to Help Lost Plane “Lucy Gal” Fly Again
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- Written by BECKY MCKEOWN
GENESEO — Austin Hancock turned 21 Saturday. He spent his special day in a place he’d grown up in—the 1941 Historical Aircraft Group Museum—working on a project that will likely take him over 10 years to complete.
Hancock, who was born in Rochester and raised in Avon, is working with the museum to build a fully-flyable P-51B Mustang from the ground up, using the original North American factory blueprints. He started raising funds to help the museum obtain a P-51Mustang three years ago after graduating high school. Since then, the project has turned into something much bigger.
Hancock, a student at St. John Fisher who is also attending commercial flight school, began researching to find out if anyone local had flown a P-51 Mustang. Through this research, he learned about Leland Heges Pennington, a Tuskegee Airman from Rochester who flew a P-51B Mustang named “Lucy Gal,” after his wife. Pennington and his plane were lost in combat over Zadar, Croatia on April 21, 1945. To this day, neither has been found.
Hancock decided to rebuild “Lucy Gal” in honor of the local hero, and to better help Rochester kids learn about the Tuskegee Airmen, who were the first all African-American aerial unit.
“Every summer our museum does what’s called ‘The Tuskegee History Program,’” said Hancock. “In the days leading up to our airshow, we have kids from the city of Rochester’s schools and the Boys and Girls Club. The bussing is donated, and they bring them down here and we give them a tour of the museum. We tell them all about the Tuskegee Airmen, and we show them the planes that they trained in and then they’re given a lecture by an actual Tuskegee Airman from World War II and also by local historians. But the one thing that we don’t have for the program that we really want is the Mustang, so we can show them what the actual Tuskegees flew. We can have them climb up into the cockpit and see first-hand.”
Hancock said if the museum had a Mustang, the program could go on year-round instead of just before the airshow. But building the museum its own “Lucy Gal” won’t be an easy, or cheap, task.
Hancock estimates the project will take around $1 or $2 million and ten years to complete. Hancock said he wants to build the Mustang’s rudder first as it is the plane’s signature red tail. A rudder kit for a P-51 costs about $5,000 minus shipping. Currently, Hancock has raised about $4,500.
“Right now we’re still in the start-up stage, the fundraising stage, and raising awareness,” said Hancock. “Once we get the funding that we need, I think we’ll be able to really build some pieces and really go for it 100%.”
To help raise funds for the project, Hancock built a donation box shaped like a bomb that he keeps at the museum when it isn’t with him at a fundraising event or lecture. Hancock said the “donation bomb” has helped him a lot, since people who stop by the museum usually put money in it.
Another way Hancock raises funds is through a PayPal button on his project blog http://fighterfund.blogspot.com, and by collecting checks from those who want to help out. Hancock said redeeming recyclables has been a surprisingly good way to collect funds, as well.
“I had my first official can and bottle drive back in October,” said Hancock. “Since then, people have heard my name and said, ‘You’re that kid who’s collecting cans and bottles, right? I’ve got a load you can come pick up.’ I’ve probably got about $400 worth of recyclables since I’ve started that. It’s cool because with the downturn of the economy and people not being able to donate much, they can give what they can through cans and bottles. That works just fine for me.”
Hancock also went to the opening weekend of the “Red Tails” movie and collected donations at Regal Cinemas 18 in Henrietta. At the end of the weekend, Hancock said he had close to $250 in donations and had given away between 400 and 500 informational fliers about the project.
In addition to fundraising and research, Hancock has also managed to reunite members of Pennington’s family. A reporter from St. Louis who wrote a story on Pennington put him in touch with Pennington’s cousin who lives in Rochester. Later, Hancock heard from Pennington’s daughter in New Orleans.
“She gave me a call one day saying, ‘I had no idea this project was going on,’” said Hancock. “I asked her if she knew he had cousins up here in Rochester and she had no idea they existed. It was the same for the cousins—they had no idea she existed. So I put them in touch and I kind of reunited a family at the same time as getting this project off the ground.”
To Hancock, connecting with people is one of the greatest things about this long-time project and journey he’s beginning.
“That’s the one thing I’d really like to get across to people,” he said. “It’s been a lot more than just building a plane.”
To learn more about Hancock’s project or to donate, visit http://fighterfund.blogspot.com.
To donate by check:
’41 Fighter Fund
c/o 1941 Historical Aircraft Group
P.O. Box 185
3489 Big Tree Lane
Geneseo, NY 14454
