Gordon Page has spent a lifetime obsessed with planes, chasing anything with wings. From his journey as a pilot and airplane aficionado to a specialty business owner and museum curator helping other museums and private collectors – he’s the go-to expert for anything to do with the aviation industry and history.
In Season 1, Episode 6 of the Amazon Prime series Chasing Planes, Gordon and the team faced a new challenge. One of the first jets used in corporate flight, a Desto Falcon Jet, was donated to Gordon’s Spirit of Flight museum over a year prior. These jets have a storied history – Federal Express used jet just like this to start their delivery service and they were very popular with Pan-Am travelers. A sleek, needle-nosed aircraft, this mid-century marvel could be a perfect addition to Gordon’s museum.
Maintenance rules have changed since Gordon acquired the jet, making it prohibitively expensive to fly. Instead of trying to keep the jet in flyable condition, Gordon has chosen to donate the jet to Redstone, a local community college, allowing the vocational students to work on an older jet and hone their new craft.
After five months of planning and permitting, moving day arrives. Just one hitch – April at Rocky Mountain airport in Broomfield, where the jet is located, still means snow. As the snow falls, a tug brings the snow-covered Falcon across the airport. Even though the aircraft tug drivers are experts at moving planes around, getting the Falcon out of the airport is a problem. Either Gordon and his crew pay $80,000 to cut down trees and power lines to get the jet out of the airport and to Redstone – or the jet goes over a fence.
Enter Pro Lift’s 90-ton capacity mobile crane. This monster has a boom that reaches out 142 feet – about as long as a 14-story building. Although Pro Lift has been doing heavy specialty lifts for over 25 years, this will be the first time lifting a corporate jet.
Using a crane to lift an airplane has its own set of challenges, even without the blowing snowfall. In airplane factories, for instance, crane operators work as part of three-person teams, one in the cab and two guiding the unevenly weighted load. Wind and low visibility can easily make a jet come off balance, something that a veteran crane operator can sense, and usually take measures to shut down the crane and protect the airplane. This lift, however, isn’t in a factory setting.
Before the lift begins, a critical safety meeting takes place. Plans have been set in place, but there’s a big risk: either the plane could snap in half, or the wild weather could cause it to become unbalanced. The goal is for Pro-Lift’s team to get the plane over the fence in one smooth movement. They’re taking into account the effect that wind will have on the jet. Slow and steady is the name of the game.
Over six inches of ice and snow have built up on the jet overnight, adding at least 1,000 extra pounds to the plane. Snow continues to fall as Gordon’s crew makes an ongoing effort to remove the excess weight from the plane. Next, a 10-inch wide strap is placed around the fuselage, wrapping around the bulkhead at the strongest part. If this strap is off even a couple inches, the entire tube could crumble, like a kid squashing a soda can.
This lift utilizes a custom-built spreader bar, attached to custom machine adapters on the engine mounts to evenly distribute the weight of the Falcon. Even though the straps and lift have been custom engineered by Pro Lift specifically to distribute the weight and protect the plane, using a new apparatus still has Gordon a little nervous. The chocks fall to the side as the lift begins, made all the more nailbiting because the snow is still blowing everywhere.
As the plane lifts, the tail is going up much faster than the nose, causing the plane to start a nosedive about a dozen feet off the ground. The team decides to come back down to readjust. Making sure the center of balance is dialed in is critical.
The second time around, the sleek jet lifts gracefully off the ground, straight and sure. Slowly, steadily, the jet lifts over the tall chain link fence, guided both from the crane operator and several workers on the ground. The jet successfully lifts over the fence – but Pro Lift’s job isn’t done yet. The jet’s tugged down the main road closed for the project. The wide wings of the plane mean that a second lift is necessary. The snow died down, but the wind picked up, challenging Gordon and the Pro Lift team yet again.
A second lift begins, carefully guiding the jet over a smaller fence and a power line. A steady guide rope ensures that the jet is kept steady in the wind, critical for helping the crane operator keep the Falcon on balance. The second lift went smoothly, with a tricky threading-the-needle maneuver by Jesse the crane operator. Everything went as planned – despite the weather. The plane made it to Redstone Community College successfully, and everyone on the team completed the project safely.
If you have an Amazon Prime account, you can watch the episode here.
