BT-13A S/N 41-21218… or “Annie”

One of the most common questions we get is, “Why did you name your plane “Annie”? We promise, we’ll get to that. But first, let’s start at the beginning.

Aircraft Serial Number 41-21218 started out life just as much as the thousands of other BT-13s that were built at Vultee Aircraft between the years of 1940 thru 1944. Rolling off the Downey assembly line in March 1942, the aircraft was immediately pressed into service with the United States Army Corps for her intended role as a Basic Trainer, starting with the 540th Flight Training School, Squadron E-524 at Merced Army Airfield. The aircraft’s current markings reflect this assignment. Over the war years, she moved to the 541st BFTS first, then the 734th Sch. Sq., and finally the 3026th AAF B.U.R., all again at Merced Army Airfield. The vast majority of the hours she flew were in and around her home field, no doubt helping to train dozens of pilots. Occasionally, there were a few flights to distant out of state bases, where she likely flew to for major maintenance work.

There is no indication in our records of when she was discharged from training duties and declared “surplus to excess”, but it was likely in late 1944 when the military elected to retire the BT-13 with the North American AT-6 Texan as a basic (as well as advanced) trainer. Regardless, she was eventually transferred to a Surplus Air Depot at Ontario, CA, and sometime after the war (like many US built military aircraft) was put up for sale. Unlike many BT-13s that were bought solely for their engines and subsequently scrapped (a common practice as the more powerful powerplant was a bit of an upgrade for Stearman biplanes), 41-21218 found salvation in a buyer who wanted to keep the plane in its entirety. Soloman “Sol” Sweet was its first civilian owner, and few could be more likely to buy such a aircraft. A Captain in the Army Air Corps, Sol had taught many a cadet in the BT-13 at Sequoia Field in that very plane, so buying one for himself was likely a very natural decision. Sol took ownership of 41-21218 for the sum of $461.25. Not much documented history exists on past it’s sale, but we imagine Sol enjoyed many hours in his Vultee in the California skies over Visalia Airport, which he helped to found.

41-21218 pop up in1983. It was then when it was acquired by Mr. Tom Nightingale of Alta Loma, CA that it issued a civilian FAA registration of N59842. Another subsequent owner was John Hannigan. Both made it a habit of flying the aircraft to various air shows around the West Coast, and Mr. Hannigan used it in it’s old role of an trainer that led to higher performance WW2 aircraft such as the AT-6 and P-51. The plane even made it onto the Hollywood screen in the 1990’s film “Forever Young” as a backdrop aircraft early in the film.

A pivotal moment in 41-21218’s life would be in 2008 when she fell to ownership of Martin Michaud, a longtime flight instructor and warbird enthusiast. For a time, the aircraft was placed on static display at Oakland Air Museum at Oakland International Airport while the aircraft underwent some needed work on its fuel system.

And it was HERE where mechanics doing the work found something special.

Nestled deep in the aft wing structure was the name “ANNIE”. How or when that got there is completely unknown, but two known facts leapt out at us. The first was that with so many men fighting the war on the front lines, women were assigned to many military airfields (Merced Army Airfield included) as aircraft mechanics. The second is that be it on the airfields or in the factories, a common practice was for mechanics to leave a message or their name somewhere in the machines they maintained or built as a sort of “good luck”. While we have no definitive proof, we surmise that “Annie” was possibly one of these two. To this day, the scrawled name remains in the aircraft, and the aircraft’s nickname was born.

Once the rework was completed, 41-21218 continued on its tradition of traveling the local air show circuit as a static display aircraft, giving the public an insight on WW2 military flight training. At the time, flight privileges remained with a core group of investors. And then in 2015, something very special happened.

Ever the enthusiastic warbird pilot, Martin and his group elected to share their warbird passion with others by giving qualified pilots in the San Francisco area the rare opportunity to train to fly his BT-13 “solo”. Many local pilots jumped at the opportunity, and over the years, it gained a bit of a following as a good number of those pilots took up the call to serve as “Ambassadors Of History”. From 2014 thru 2018, Annie could be found at any number of California air shows as a static display, her new cadre pilots taking up the call to educate the attendees with how US WW2 aviators earned their wings. In 2016, she would take that task to the ultimate expression by flying thousands of miles to Sweetwater, TX, where she paid homage to the Women Airforce Service Pilots veterans that were in attendance. Most movingly, she brought back clear memories of “Basic Flight Training” to those WW2 aviatrixes that got to see a BT-13 for the first time in nearly 75 years. Some would actually go up in Annie to directly relive what one told me was “the best years of her life”.

October 2018 would be when bad luck struck. During a training flight at Livermore California, Annie suffered an engine failure during a touch and go. With very little time available, the pilot’s skill saw her set back down on the runway; unfortunately, she had very little runway left when she touched back down. Running off the runway at a low speed, she unfortunately went into a ditch and then into the airport’s perimeter fence. Fortunately, both pilot’s walked away from the incident, although the same couldn’t be said for Annie. While the damage could’ve been much worse, it was still considerable enough to where some serious repairs were required.

Which brings us to today..