Warbird Information Exchange

The Ken Jungeberg Collection:
This isn’t microfilm. Original pencil-drawn North American Aviation part drawing collection finds a new home at AirCorps Aviation.
AirCorps Aviation announced today that they have acquired a collection of original North American Aviation engineering drawings. These drawings, part of the newly named “Ken Jungeberg Collection” were stored in the archives of North American’s Columbus, OH factory until 1988. Each drawing is hand-drawn in pencil on tracing vellum, and was used to develop and build the P-51, B-25, T-6, P-82, and many more.

Ken Jungeberg was the head of the Master Dimensions department at Columbus in 1988 when the factory closed its doors. When he heard that North American was planning to burn all the WWII era drawings in their archive, he knew he had to do something. He began writing letters and making calls to his superiors, advocating to save the drawings. Discouraged by responses that there was nothing he could do, Ken had all but given up, until a twist of fate changed everything.

A situation that would have been a tragedy under normal circumstances turned positive when a pipe burst in the archive room that stored the drawings to be destroyed. The room all but filled with water, cracking the cement foundation, and soaking the contents of the room. North American employees emptied the room, and piled the soaking wet drawings in a heap on the factory floor, where they sat for the next two weeks.

It was at the end of these two weeks that Ken got the call he had been waiting for. He was told that he could have the drawings, if he came to pick them up immediately, and promise that they would never end up “blowing around in a landfill”. Clearly the company was still concerned with preserving the name and reputation that North American was known for. Ken rented a truck and he and several friends loaded the drawings, and took them to a barn where Ken began the monumental task of laying them out to dry. Because the drawings were done in pencil on tracing vellum (a very durable media), the information was essentially undamaged.

Once the drawings were dry enough, Ken sorted, re-rolled, and boxed them up. He took many to his home, and stored the rest at his hangar at the Warren County Airport in Lebanon, OH. The drawings would remain in this same location for the next 32 years, until 2019.

AirCorps Aviation learned of Ken’s collection in the spring of 2019, and in December of that year Ken agreed to transfer ownership to AirCorps. As the new custodian of this important collection of drawings, AirCorps plans to catalog and organize the drawings so they can be utilized by the vintage and legacy aviation industry for the first time in history. “These drawings are going to change what we know about the amazing aircraft that North American manufactured during World War II” says Erik Hokuf, general manager of AirCorps Aviation.

While microfilm and copies of aircraft drawings from this era are not uncommon, few individuals have ever seen a hand-drawn original. The drawings in Ken’s collection largely represent production drawings, and the experimental work that North American’s draftsmen created while developing parts and assemblies that would later be finalized. A perfect example being the drawings distinguished with the prefix 73X. These drawings were used to develop the widely popular P-51 Mustang in just 120 days in 1940, and have never been seen by the general public.

Another exciting example of the experimental work being done, is a tailhook drawing for the P-51. It has been speculated that North American was thinking of modifying the Mustang for use on aircraft carriers, and drawing 109-955033 titled Design Layout – Catapult Hook Install proves that this was true.

While many of the drawings are considered “experimental”, a large number of drawings in the collection are later revisions that are still used today to manufacture warbird parts and assemblies. “It’s hard to understand the collection without seeing it in real life, and comparing it to the microfilm images that we are so familiar with” says Ester Aube, the Data and Library Specialist at AirCorps. Details that have been obscured by the darkening of microfilm over time, over-use, or simply deterioration, can be seen on the original drawing in crystal clarity.

When looking at the original drawing, minute details can be easily seen - sometimes even eraser marks are visible!
Aside from the obvious technical value of the drawings, it’s hard not to appreciate them from an artistic standpoint. Hearkening back to a time before computers and CAD programs, the draftsmen of North American Aviation created these images with nothing but pencils, drafting tools, and their bare hands – no small feat.

AirCorps unveiled examples from Ken’s collection this weekend at the National Warbird Operators Conference (NWOC) in Mobile, AL, and hopes that others will share their feeling of excitement at viewing these “technical works of art”. Ken has done the vintage and legacy aircraft community a great service through his persistence, and understanding of what these drawings would mean in a historical context. “We cannot thank him enough for the service he performed, and look forward to continuing to work with him as we unpack and sort the drawings” says Aube.

If you would like more information about the Ken Jungeberg collection, or have additional questions, please contact:

Ester Aube

estera@aircorpsaviation.com

218-444-4478

Click the play to the right to view our Facebook video!
[Link to the Video]


Original photo of the Columbus Division Archive room


(Pencil on vellum) Drawn by Eugene Clay, an artist and draftsman from NAA. Similar P-51D drawings can be found at the beginning of parts catalogs, maintenance, and structural repair manuals.


Ken Jungeberg (on left) receiving a "Zero Defects" award from his chief engineer at NAA.


Heaped drawings on the NAA factory floor when Ken arrived to take them home.


Contents of the storage room after the burst pipe, and before their removal.



Ken sorting and drying the drawings in his friends barn.


Rolled drawings (in original NAA crates) stored in Ken's hangar.


Smaller "cut size" drawings stored in Ken's ping pong table in his basement.


Ken pulled the rolled drawings he considered the most interesting, and stored them in totes in his basement.


Approximately 50 cardboard boxes contain thousands of smaller drawings.


This 73X drawing used in the development of the first P-51, shows the wing airfoil ordinates for that aircraft.


The tailhook modification can clearly be seen at the bottom of this drawing (109-955033). Experimental drawings were designated by a leading "9" after the prefix, and were called "9-ball" by draftsmen.


Microfilm slide M159 of P-51D throttle quadrant drawing 122-43005 showing darkening of the image.


Original pencil-drawn version of P-51D t[h]rottle quadrant drawing 122-43005. This drawing is the same one that was photographed and used for the microfilm image [above].


Even digitized at high resolution, the darkening of the microfilm makes it difficult to read important details on the drawing.


When looking at the original drawing, minute details can be easily seen - sometimes even eraser marks are visible!


Ken showing off the 10 feet long nose gun installation drawing for the B-25 (his favorite aircraft).

Like the exact opposite of what happened to Republics drawings.

Very impressive: I hope there's more to the collection than 'just' P-51/WW2...

Bemidji company flying high over rare P-51 Mustang drawings
Original engineering plans "freaked out" aircraft restorers.

AirCorps Aviation, a Bemidji company that restores World War II aircraft, frequently has people reach out to it with military artifacts. Often, those offering up mementos believe their pieces have great historical value.

The company has earned a niche in the “Warbirds” community of World War II aircraft aficionados as an authority on P-51 Mustangs, an iconic World War II fighter plane. People often call, believing they have rare and important historical microfilms of engineering drawings. Most are little more than junk.

But last year, Ester Aube, the company’s data and library specialist, got a call from a retired Ohio engineer named Ken Jungeberg. Jungeberg once worked at North American Aviation in Columbus, which manufactured the P-51 Mustangs, and had original engineering drawings of the plane.

And Jungeberg wanted to know: Was the Bemidji company interested in those originals, since the drawings are typically only seen on dark and incomplete microfilm?

Intrigued, Aube asked him to mail her some of the drawings. When she opened a tube filled with 14 intricate pencil drawings of the planes, it took her back in history to 80 years ago.

“I freaked out,” Aube said. “Because nobody had really seen these before. I almost started crying when I saw one of these drawings. It was the throttle quadrant drawing from the P-51 Mustang. I knew what it looked like on microfilm. It was really dark. You couldn’t read much of the important information. And it blew me away, that I was here holding the exact piece of paper photographed on that microfilm.”

The drawings tell a remarkable behind-the-scenes tale of the war effort on the home front. The military asked North American Aviation in 1940 to build P-40 Warhawks, a Curtiss-Wright-designed plane. North American Aviation demurred, wanting to build its own version. The military gave the company 120 days to build that new version. The first prototype was designed and built in 117 days. Many of Jungeberg’s drawings were from the original 117-day project.

Aube and Erik Hokuf, the general manager of AirCorps Aviation, flew to Ohio to see Jungeberg’s collection of drawings, which he kept from being destroyed in the 1980s. Some of the crates hadn’t been opened in decades. Jungeberg had even saved original packing slips.

“When you put your hands on it, you feel like you shouldn’t touch them, but it sinks in when you can see the pencil on the paper,” Hokuf said. “It just gives you chills. It brings you back to World War II.”

Jungeberg transferred ownership of the thousands of drawings to AirCorps Aviation, and the company is in the midst of collating, digitizing and archiving them. The drawings have historical value and also logistical value for the company, which restores planes to flying condition with much the same sounds and at the same speeds as during the war.

In 1940, only 3,600 aircraft were produced in the United States. By 1945, American companies had produced nearly 300,000 in the intervening five years.

The story is particularly relevant today, when America finds itself in a different type of war, against COVID-19.

“The country is trying to mobilize to make masks and vents and medical supplies and retraining medical staff, and all those things are exactly what happened during World War II,” Hokuf said. “We banded together as a country and a world.”

“When you touch those drawings, those are the stories you can feel,” he added. “It’s a time portal back to those days when as a country we put our differences aside and focused on one mission.”

Very cool, thanks for sharing!

I used to work for a large supplier of railroad signalling equipment that was founded in the 1920s and could trace their roots back to George Westinghouse's company. My company had a large archive room with drawings as far back as the last 1800s . A few years before I left the company we were purchased by a giant German conglomerate and they were heavily pushing to "5S" the office. You guessed it, the entire company archives were thrown into the dumpster. 19th century engineering drawings and all. A few coworkers were able to intercept a few documents to keep as mementos.

EDIT: I forgot to mention, when the factory closed, Boeing took everything that they considered relevant to the modern aircraft at the time. If you look closely at the crates on the right side of the first photograph, you'll notice they're marked "obsolete" - that's the stuff he had.

One artist who contributed to Boeing heritage company North American Aviation, initially worked on the “Tommy Tailspin” comic strip. Having that background drawing airplanes, Reynold Brown was hired by North American and was soon drawing production illustrations and sketches that were used in company manuals.

Many of these “phantom illustrations” were done in conjunction with Mary Louise Tejeda. She often illustrated the wings while Reynold worked on the fuselage of these complex and detailed drawings.

Per a North American inter-organizational memo from 1943, uses for these illustrations were spelled out, including, “…generally, the entire office is brought closer to the airplane and therefore can operate more efficiently and with a definite improvement in morale. Obviously, it is hard to become inspired by a parts list, but if it can be tied to these pictures, the work becomes clearer and more inspiring.”

Brown also created vivid illustrations that were intended to convey the airplanes in action, many of them inspired by stories told by pilots returning from war.

After about five years at North American, Brown moved to New York (and later back to California), married his former collaborator Mary Louise Tejeda and developed an incredible illustration career. He is best known for his spectacular movie posters and magazine covers.

Brown’s time at North American Aviation and his career in illustration are detailed in the book, “Reynold Brown – A Life in Pictures” by Daniel Zimmer.