Thunderbird, a P-51C now owned by pilot Warren Pietsch, one of the founders and board member of the Minot air museum, has set aviation records and still holds five speed records. It has been owned by celebrities, including actor and World War II bomber pilot Jimmy Stewart and aviation pioneer Jackie Cochran, who set aviation records.

Pietsch bought the plane in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, in 1999. He did not know until later the plane he purchased was Thunderbird.

He said the plane crashed in 1955.

“There wasn’t a lot left – just some parts,” he said.

Plane crew members for the Bendix Air Race are painted on Thunderbird. The former owner, late actor and World War II pilot Jimmy Stewart, had the names painted on the side to recognize them for their work.

He collected parts over the past years and organized a restoration project, then hired AirCorps Aviation in Bemidji, Minnesota, for the restoration work.

Owning a P-51 Mustang has been a longtime dream of Pietsch.

“I painted a picture of a P-51 on my bedroom wall when I was 10 and started dreaming about one back then,” he said.

He said he found out the plane was Thunderbird and learned the significant history about two years into the project when doing research on it.

Relating some of the plane’s history, Pietsch said Joe De Bona was a World War II ferry pilot who ferried fighters and bombers across both oceans.

The propeller blades of the P-51C Thunderbird glisten in the sunlight.

“After the war he became a real estate agent in California but he always dreamed of winning the Bendix Air Race. The Bendix Air Race was started in the early ’30s and was basically a race sponsored by Bendix Corporation to prove the reliability and capability of aviation to continue to improve it. The race went from Rosamond Dry Lake bed (near what is now Edwards Air Force Base in California) to Cleveland, Ohio,” he said.

He said De Bona entered the race in 1947 in a different Mustang and then he and Stewart got together, with Stewart owning De Bona’s race team and sponsoring the plane.

“Thunderbird raced in 1948 but (De Bona) came up 60 miles short of the finish line. He was in the lead but he ran out of gas,” Pietsch said. “In 1949 he raced again and that’s when he won the race. He achieved his dream of winning the race.”

He said Stewart flew Thunderbird but never raced it.

“Jimmy Stewart then sold the plane to Jackie Cochran, who was also a World War II veteran. She commanded the WASPS – Women’s Airforce Service Pilots. She was a record setter. She had won the Bendix before the war and bought this Mustang because it was the fastest Mustang out there. She paid Jimmy Stewart one dollar for it and then she set three records in it that still stand,” Pietsch said.

He said the Bendix race that De Bona won set a new piston-powered speed record. The record still stands because Thunderbird was the last piston-powered airplane to win a Bendix.

Pietsch said Cochran then sold the plane back to Jimmy Stewart for a dollar. Then Jimmy Stewart sold it back to Joe De Bona Racing Team. Joe DeBona then set a transcontinental speed record in it from Los Angeles to New York,” Pietsch said.

The plane has more historical significance due to its involvement in the coronation event for Queen Elizabeth II on June 2, 1953.

Arrangements were made to have footage of the coronation ceremonies flown across the Atlantic Ocean to Newfoundland. From there, Stewart’s plane, Thunderbird, flew film to Boston on the day of the coronation.

“That was the first time in history an event that happened over in Europe was broadcasted the same day in the U.S on television. Thunderbird was a big part of that history of having those films carried so they could be broadcasted,” Pietsch said.

“The airplane still holds five speed records – two set by Joe De Bona and three by Jackie Cochran, and then it did the Queen Elizabeth II coronation,” he added.

He said the airplane then was sold to James Cook of Texas, who had a weather modification company. During Cook’s ownership, the plane crashed just north of Scottsbluff, Nebraska. Pietch found the plane in that area and started tracing its history.

“Once I found out it was Jimmy Stewart’s airplane and held all these records, I decided I better paint it back just the way it crossed the finish line in 1949. It looks like the day it won the race,” he said of the plane’s cobalt blue paint.

The plane took part in the EAA AirVenture Oshkosh air show in Wisconsin last year.

“We were in a huge rush to finish the airplane and the paint was still drying when we got to Oshkosh. You could still smell the vapors coming off the paint,” Pietsch said. “It was a big hit in Oshkosh and it was a big hit in Reno (Air Races) last year. We had it in Reno for a week and it flew in the show there.”

Pietsch has been in contact with the Jimmy Stewart Museum in Indiana, Pennsylvania, where Stewart was born and grew up, and where his grandfather started a hardware store.

“They’re having a 30th anniversary of the museum on May 20 next year, which is Jimmy Stewart’s birthday. I think I’ll take the airplane out there and have it on display for a few days. They’ve been asking me to bring it,” Pietsch said.

“It has a tremendous racing history. It’s a very famous plane in the race world,” Pietsch said of his P-51C Mustang.