WALL STREET JOURNAL FEATURES AUBURN-BASED LUFTHANSA PROJECT
(LEWISTON, ME) — The Wall Street Journal featured a front-page story about a project being undertaken by Lufthansa experts to restore a vintage 1950s-era Lockheed Super Constellation Starliner aircraft at the Auburn-Lewiston Municipal Airport.
In a June 16, 2008, story, reporter Daniel Michaels wrote a feature story about how volunteers and retirees of Lufthansa are recreating to the finest detail the former luxury aircraft by salvaging parts from three Starliners. The work is being done locally because the parts and aircraft shell were formerly owned by a local aviation enthusiast.
“In the 1980s, Maurice Roundy, a 63-year-old pilot, aircraft mechanic and airfield manager in Auburn, Maine, bought three Starliners for their scrap value,” wrote Michaels. “He started rebuilding them, but after spending $500,000 of his own money on the effort, he ran out of cash and last year filed for bankruptcy-court protection.”
“When Lufthansa Technik Chief Executive August Henningsen heard that three Starliners would go under the gavel, he jumped into action. After inspecting the planes last November in Maine and Florida, Mr. Henningsen sent his deputies to the auction in December. Slowed by a Maine snowstorm, they arrived just in time to land the three planes for a bid of $745,000.50.”
The project is expected to be complete by 2010.
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