V-1 Restoration

By coincidence, the crew was finishing up the restoration of a German V-1 "buzz bomb" the day I visited the Air Zoo's restoration hangar.

The V-1 came to them in poor shape; they had to reconstruct the nose of the missile. The Senior Curator of Aircraft apparently does a lot of work on the computer, and he duplicated all of the stenciling on the V-1, creating a font which was exactly like the original lettering. Referring to a number of photos, he duplicated everything and found the precise location where the wording was to appear, right down to the serial number (or similar) on a control surface being done in a different font and where all of the digits were not properly lined up -- he showed me a photo of the original and it matched exactly.

By my next visit to the museum, the V-1 had been put on display on the main exhibit floor of the Main Campus.

The Air Force Museum has a number of V-1-related images, including a cool cut-away diagram of a V-1, a photo of a V-1 launch emplacement, and a picture capturing a V-1 moments before impact. The Smithsonian has a detailed V-1 page (be sure to click the "Long Description" tab).