First American Fighter Flies Again

Top photo: American Heritage Museum President Rob Collings with Nieuport 28 restorer Mikael Carlson in front of the aircraft during our WWI Aviation Weekend. Middle photo: An original World War One M1917 tank from the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome collection leads a group of re-enactor soldiers in a charge against the German camp. Bottom photo: An original Model T Ambulance with American Expeditionary Force re-enactors collect the wounded during the event. We will host another WWI Aviation Weekend in September, 2023. The Collings Foundation and American Heritage Museum are known around the world for restoring and operating some of the finest and most historically accurate aircraft. Our extraordinary N.28 restoration honors the designers, pilots, and mechanics of the First World War.

This Nieuport emerged from a factory near Paris, France late in 1918. Following WWI, the American government imported about fifty Nieuport 28s, including our N.28, to fill out the ranks of the newly established U.S. Army Air Service. After retirement from Army use, N.28 gained a new lease on life in civilian hands, being featured in a number of significant aviation films, such as Hells Angels (1930) and The Dawn Patrol (1930 & 1938). Part of a collection gathered by famed aerial performers Paul Mantz and Frank Tallman, the Nieuport continued flying into the 1960s, and was among the numerous unique airframes put up for disposal at the ‘Tallmantz Auction’ of May 1968. Legendary racing car builder/ driver Jim Hall bought the Nieuport for $14,500. The aircraft was not flown after the early 1970s and largely disappeared from public view until 2019, when the American Heritage Museum started the restoration.

In the summer of 2019, the Nieuport was shipped from Texas to the workshop of famed aviation restoration expert Mikael Carlson in Sweden. The first order of business was careful

1918 Nieuport 28

America’s First Fighter Flies Again

disassembly of all components. Being a wooden structure, and more than a century old, it was expected that some parts would be useful only as patterns for exact new-build components. But, to Mikael’s delight much of the original structure was in excellent condition!

Surprisingly, the plane’s 1918 nine-cylinder Gnome Monosoupape 9N rotary engine was in outstanding shape. Mikael moved forward, completing the entire airframe and engine mount and then installed the power plant. With the front end fully assembled, Mikael was able to form the cowling to correct size and shape, within the very tight tolerances of the original design. All metal components were found to be in excellent condition and utilized in the restoration. The final touches included mixing hand ground pigment for the paint and decorating the plane in the markings of America’s first WWI Ace, Douglas Campbell’s original N28. With the Nieuport 28 completed and test flown by Mikael in Sweden, it was put on a ship to Massachusetts. The aircraft was reassembled at the American Heritage Museum in time for our WWI Aviation weekend in September 2022. In honor of our WWI aviators and veterans, the aircraft is now on display in the American Heritage Museum.