As curious tourists file through the hangars and storage rooms at Fantasy of Flight in Polk City, Florida they can often be overheard marveling at the pristine condition of the dozens of aircraft on display. Billed as the greatest private aircraft collection in the world, the sometimes weird and always wonderful collection of aircraft, engines, and components covers the history of powered flight, from the wood and fabric machines of the earliest years all the way through the golden age and even a modern ultralight vehicle or two.

Scattered in between are warbirds, classics, antiques, and rarities from all over the globe.

Andy Salter, a soft-spoken Englishman who hails from the London suburb of High Wycombe is one of five employees of Weeks Aircraft who work on site to rebuild those aircraft and in many cases, keep them flying. It is this handful of mechanics and restoration specialists that can take the lion’s share of the credit for the high quality of the aircraft on display. Especially because their task can be significantly more difficult than that of the average aircraft mechanic. In many cases the various pieces and parts that require replacement during a full restoration haven’t been manufactured in decades. Which is where Andy comes in. With an affection for warbirds and classics that stretches all the way back to his childhood and two decades of experience making parts from flat stock and metal bars, Andy is the man to go to when there is nowhere else to turn for hard-to-find parts acquisition.

"Anything pre-1930s becomes an issue," admitted the wizard of the milling machines. He said he often finds himself in the position to be re-inventing jigs and parts for aircraft and engines whose tooling has long since gone from the factory floors of the world. But if the crew needs a piston, valve, or seat frame for an aircraft that is long out of production, Andy Salter seems to find a way to get a part that is substantially similar to the original into their hands.

Salter’s work for Personal Plane Services in his home country gave him a solid grounding in the restoration and maintenance of antique and rare aircraft. PPS specializes in not only restoring rare aircraft, but also supplying them to movie-making companies. It was while working for PPS that Salter was put in the lead position for the restoration of a Supermarine Spitfire MK XVI that was owned by Kermit Weeks.

Upon completion, Salter lead the team that brought the WWII fighter to Florida and reassembled it for display at Weeks’s aviation-themed attraction, Fantasy of Flight. The trip proved to be a fateful one for Salter.

Back in England, Salter contacted Kermit Weeks with an offer to assist with the aircraft in his collection that remained in Europe. That contact lead to another trip across the big water to Florida at Kermit’s invitation. Salter remains in Florida to this day, rebuilding and maintaining some of the most unique and peculiar aircraft a mechanic would ever hope to work on. And simultaneously learning the legal and regulatory ropes that come with a system of maintenance requirements in a new country.

"It’s been an interesting learning process," said Salter, "because you guys [Americans] do things differently." So true. Not only do Americans build aircraft with a different mindset and different hardware than those found on the other side of the Atlantic, there also is a completely different set of mechanic certification requirements. So while Salter was perfectly legal to rebuild and maintain aircraft on the English side of the ocean, in the U.S. he has been limited to his acknowledged specialty as a tool and parts maker in the machine shop. Because he hasn’t held an FAA A&P license to this point, he isn’t in a position to personally undertake maintenance duties and sign off logbooks on the flying aircraft in the collection. Although that’s a situation that will change shortly. By the time you read these words the ambitious and talented Salter should be a fully certificated airframe and powerplant mechanic. When I met with Salter, he was awaiting the date of his practical exam to arrive.

"I felt I should," said Salter, when asked why he went after his American mechanic certificate. He is a strong believer in the theory that mechanics should constantly be updating their skills and making an effort to keep on top of technology as it evolves. With every intention of continuing to expand his own educational horizons, he plans to earn a degree in aeronautical engineering as well. "I think if you started doing this [aircraft restoration] when you were five and lived to be 100, you still wouldn’t know it all," he said with a smile.

Truer words were never spoken.–