Suburban Man Brings Historic WW2 Plane Back To Life

Every small town has its dreamer, and in Marengo, Illinois, that dreamer is Mike Kellner—an aviation enthusiast who has spent the better part of 40 years restoring a WWII-era B‑17 bomber in his backyard barn.

Junkyard Find

In 1984, Kellner discovered a disassembled B‑17E in a junkyard near Bangor, Maine, available for $7,000 as scrap.

Over several trips, he hauled the aluminum wreckage—cut into eight-foot sections—500 miles back to Illinois.

Reassembly by Passion

Driven by a dream dating to high school—and confirmed when he got his pilot’s license at 16—Kellner began the painstaking rebuild.

He erected a barn in Marengo in the mid‑1990s to house the project, working full-time (and later part-time) alongside volunteer mechanics like Chris Gibson, whose father flew as a B‑17 tail gunner.

A Historical Aircraft with Names & Stories

The plane, serial number 41‑2595, earned the nicknames Desert Rat and later Tangerine—the latter scrawled inside the fuselage.

Records show it originally served as a B‑17E in 1942, later converted to the prototype cargo variant XC‑108A, never seeing front‑line combat.

Restoration Challenges & Progress

• Structural rebuild: The fuselage was cut apart for scrapping; Kellner’s team remanufactured the central wing‑carry structure.

• Detail work: Ball‑turret and camera bay structures are rebuilt, bomb‑bay catwalks loom next, along with plumbing for bombs and turrets.

• Parts hunt: The team is sourcing rare parts—seats, turret mechanisms, nacelle tubing (German‑made), coordinates for Wright Cyclone 1820 engines—often via barter or salvage trips across the U.S.

Aiming for Flight—With Help

Kellner hopes that Desert Rat will fly—possibly within the next two to five years, contingent on sufficient funding. He plans to hire experienced test pilots and, once certified, to display the bomber at airshows and offer historic rides to fund its maintenance.

What began as a childhood dream has transformed into a lifelong commitment—a forty-year labour of love spanning scrap-hauling, structural rebuilds, and community rallying.