The Defender

[Music] he [Music] here on the edge of Carmen Manitoba the only designer and builder of fighter aircraft in Canada is hard at work on his latest [Music] [Music] project all the Wings come into this section right here I just getting around to drawing that they come in right above the boom here and the struts come from the bottom of the of the wheel to catch the wing and the the propellers and the engine are mounted in the back so that the whole Center Line is is free so that when you're shooting you can shoot Center Line and other words you aim the airplane and where you aim the airplane is where you hit so that you don't have to allow for the ordinance being out on the wings and converging as the new fighter begins to take shape on the shop floor Bob deer is confident it will do no less than change the course of Modern Warfare if we had 5,000 of these airlanes the Canan forces as small as they are could stop an armored drive a Russian armored drive into Europe all by themselves and uh the cost compared to the F-18 would be well it's it's not in the same ballpark even you know we would have saved ourselves about 3 and half billion dollar the F-18 Hornet from McDonald Douglas of St Louis Missouri and isable of carrying deert is well aware that to sell his own fighter to the big military Spenders he must outmaneuver some of the most expensive aircraft in the [Music] sky [Music] it was not a show like this however where the Canadian Forces became so excited for the F-18 they bought a handful of the fighters for $5 billion deert had come to the show to promote his cheaper alternative but by then the spending was clearly out of [Music] control I know for a fact that if it comes to the Crunch and we have to use the airplanes going to be totally useless to us what are you going to do with 135 airplanes anyway at the best of times we're going to put say 50 of them in Europe and 50 of them over here in Canada and 35 or so in mothballs to uh for spares what are you going to do with 50 airplanes in the country as biggest Canada in spite of losing the contract deer still feels he has an extraordinary Edge over the [Music] competition he plans to sell the defender for 900 t times less than the F18 for the cost of 135 f-18s the Canadian Forces could have bought 15,000 Defenders we have to have some means to balance the massive conventional military arm of the Russian military and that's where the defender comes in [Music] to help with the defender deer brings in an Electronics wizard from Bristol Aerospace of Winnipeg his name is Chris Ball he happens to own his own tank which deer quickly puts to good use [Music] a [Music] with the tank and a small airplane borrowed from a neighbor they hope to prove the basic theory of the defender to hit a very slow Russian tank you need a very slow airplane from a supersonic F-18 you couldn't even see a tank let alone shoot at one [Music] [Music] coming that's so easy it's ridiculous I go go back and have another go at him deer lives on the edge of Carmen in a house he designed and built himself during a hot spell he dug a hole in the living room floor and put in a swimming pool for the kids the bottom of the pool was too bumpy so he laid down an underwater carpet making it perhaps the world's only living room swimming pool with wall to--all Carpeting and you don't figure the British ships could have held them all off there's no way how would you defend yourself against 5,000 Defenders what time well I know it wasn't 5,000 but look at what happened to torpedo Squadron 8 back in the Battle of Midway in world World War II they suffered 100% casualty sure because they went in in small numbers and got clobbered because they were going up against a superior Force but if you go in with that many airplanes they couldn't shoot at you fast enough they wouldn't have enough Rockets or enough guns to train on you you just simply swamp the defenses hey py speak speak I don't to get those guys out of pool yet I'm in here deer's wife Elaine is a skydiver skilled pilot and a successful businesswoman his father served on an American battleship in World War I think we should Smit that pool in keep them out of there okay you guys come on for lunch hurry up he climbed into the cockpit and he made that twin wasp Blair he gunned it down the runway and we watched him disappear guys come on let's have we knew he was a thorough bread when he pushed her through the gate for in that Pratt and Whitney were 1500 lb of hate deer first flew into combat during the filming of the movie The Battle of Britain desperately short of authentic airplanes The film's Producers showed up one day in Carmen deut was at work on an old British hurricane he'd rescued from a farmer's field flying his own airplane over to Eng England the 28-year-old deer soon became one of the movie's top stunned [Music] Pilots after his success with the rebuilt hurricane deer began to travel the world in search of wrecked aircraft he brought them to car and a scrap and sold them to collectors in perfect flying [Music] condition deer's 25 years of engineering and flying experience is now sharply focused on his greatest passion the defender now I don't advise you to walk up to one of the uh indan Air Force has brand new $20 million f-18s and do this going to get hung at Sunrise deer has decided the slow flying Defender will have to be heavily armored like a tank of course an ordinary Wing design couldn't possibly lift such a heavy aircraft so now we've got an aircraft but no Wing to lift it with yeah that's about the size of it isn't it you know when that Canard didn't work that really threw us for a loop here here you know we're really backed into a corner now we've got to come up with something really different if we're going to make it work in order to get the heavily armored Defender off the ground and demonstrate its potential they will need to invent something with at least twice the lift of a conventional [Music] Wing oh let's get this cool thing in the wind and get it tested okay I hate working on days when it's so depressing and windy and rainy sections of wing are first designed and built then in a series of aerodynamic tests their lift performance is examined in the Wind Tunnel up our years of snow drift and cold weather propop clear a steady blast of air is sucked through the tunnel over the wing section its lift performance is then measured on a pair of calibrated instruments at the back what did that give us well like they say on television it's not working no 130 in the back scale back scale is good oh 265 lbs we had we we had more with just the the top two sections the other day that's right the two parasites were doing better so that means the bottom Wing is interfering with the top two so that means we're probably going to have to build a new air foil for the bottom which should be more laminer and we're probably also going to have to go with that big slot before it's going to work the big slot plus a laminer floor Wing yep working up to 18 hours a day on the defender's Wing Chris Ball gives up his apartment in town and builds himself a room on the side of deer's hanger I collect and Study High Precision Machinery I'm very fascinated by it to me this is an object of Art and it's even more fascina fascinating when you can actually get it running and you can see all this equipment functioning doing exactly what it did in the airplanes they came out of in spite of the workload Chris still makes time for his own projects this is my home belt call it the wedge it's something different it's design to be different it's an exercise and styling the doors um they open like this and in a hot day they're made to be removed that's why the air conditioning is no longer necessary the idea is is so revolutionary that uh the average guy I don't think would want one Chris has his own fighter concept it too is waiting for a radical breakthrough in Wing Design After testing the defender air foils in the Wind Tunnel they are mounted on a high-speed platform and taken on a journey to the very limits of the aerodynamic envelope [Music] everything holding together back there everything all right back there okay 45 indicated air speed 50 indicated air speed 55 going for 60 coming up on 60 we got 60 indicated air speed jez Bob ever hanging on back [Music] there we hanging together back there 60 indicated air [Music] speed 65 indicated air speed [Music] 70 well it's not working seems to be turbulence or something in between the uh the bottom two planes and the I know it's turbul rating and it's just not coming through I guess uh we're just going to have to sit down and do some serious thinking about this thing the first air foil designs have been a disappointment but then deart expects to learn from trial and error as he always has growing up on a small farm his mechanical skills were almost entirely self-taught [Music] they will continue to design and test over 260 air foils in the coming 3 years one of these times we're going to get something the work trouble with building Wings you work for a day and a half or two days to build a wing and the wind toone shoots you down in 30 seconds figure this one will be it who knows [Music] [Music] n [Music] what are we got yo we got her man You Me At Last that's it boy no more that's the end we've got it it's a we got something at Works what were those tapes doing exactly just what they were supposed to be doing it's absolutely laminer and we had 175 lbs on that scale and we had 120 lbs on that scale and that's all we need after three solid years of research and testing the design of the defender is now complete the drawings have been submitted to the Ministry of Transport and now deer has arrived in Winnipeg to collect the defender's certificate of airworthiness deer's relationship with the government however has been on a steady decline for 25 years what you people are trying to do is to completely destroy anybody's chance of building an experimental airplane in Canada I think it's not unreasonable the Canadian public require that you do not have Armament when you test well certainly nobody's questioning that we asked that you wear a parachute is that is that unreasonable yes it is because I pointed out to you that it's impossible to parachute out of that airplane and yet you said you had to wear a parachute now the reason you said to wear a parachute was not for my safety that was for your safety fell because if something should happen to me you can turn around and say well look I said he had to wear a parachute that's why the parachute in the defender is a total waste of time because there's no way to get out of that airplan you know that as well as I do you've got a propeller 3 ft behind you there is no way to bail out of that air your only protection in that airplane and the best protection which I have proven is the design of the airplane and if you people weren't so stubborn and that's the only word I can call it you would look at the design and say hey just a minute this guy is may be doing something here that's very interesting because he walked away from an accident that would have killed anybody in any other airplane you've got in any other country in the world but you're not interested in that the approval situation is further Complicated by the cataclysmic fate of one of deer's earlier fighter designs and we saw the machine lift off the ground and I was just forming the thought well it actually flies and the next thing I knew it had pitched up and was pointing vertically up in the air and fell back on itself and hit the ground almost vertically nose first and and uh there was a resounding thud and you could hear the propeller disintegrating it uh flipped over on the runway and uh nose down and all the way down there I ran down to the airplane and I wasn't sure what I was going to see what I did see was him crawling out from under it with blood all over his face but he was at least he was alive I caused the accident there was nothing wrong with the airplane I caused the accident because I was searching out the limits of the longitudinal stability on the airplane and and I exceeded the limits I didn't do it intentionally I'm not that stupid but I before I was going to go fly that airplane I wanted to know what it was going to do now it was I that caused the accident not the airplane mind you the airplane does have a very narrow stability feature all canards do that was understood beforehand and the airplane proved to be completely unacceptable deer has declined the certificate of airworthiness when I get ready with the defender they're either going to have to come across with a license for the airplane or they're going to have to lock me up and they're going to have an awful hard time to lock me up for now the certificate is the least of Bob deer's problems his aircraft restoration business has been dormant during three long years of Defender research he's now heavily in debt he approaches the Canadian military for a small research Grant they said yes uh you can do what you say you can do with the airplane and yes your armor is effective we have the specs on it too and yes you have a capability that we don't have but the bottom line is we don't have any money and it's a fact they don't have any money they've blown it all on on on the F18 and uh that's it they just don't have anymore it has been 25 years since the last time Canadian industry tried to build a fighter plane the ill-fated Avo Arrow like the defender was undermined by those desperate to spend all the money in St Louis yet deert is determined to save the still wingless Defender and what's left of a once proud Canadian industry he will raise money by rebuilding yet another old war plane but first he must find sponsors with unlimited [Music] resources [Music] for the land of the every of our show today and give them that they may return here with us for other show areay come on over here here's what you looking for right here the Confederate Air Force Harlingen Texas forgot history I don't know but he don't know how it came out he's still out there seeing they stage an air show once a year to reenact the great aerial conflicts of World War II the Battle of Britain Midway Guam and of course the ever popular bombing of Pearl [Music] Harbor all the great aircraft are here Spitfires Corsair Mitchells mosquitoes HL and hellcats 2,000 altoe each authentic in every detail except for the jaanese planes they're fake they've had to make do with American trainers painted up in Japanese colors the organizers know the show will never be complete without what many consider the most spectacular fighter of all time the Mitsubishi ryen A6 M2 type 21 commonly known as the Japanese zero a date which will live in infamy but I tried three times times to take a picture as we came across here and every time I lift the camera up and wonk I never did get the picture not coming this [Laughter] way deer's announcement at the show creates a sensation he claims he can provide the Confederate Air Force with an authentic zero the only flyable zero in the world we've scared the entire Pacific we've looked the world over we we've went on all Goose chases it's unbelievable what we've done Tred to obtain when the truly great aircraft of the era which is part of our collection and when we came up with this particular aircraft or the idea of getting Mr deer to restore an aircraft like this it was it it was all it was really unbelievable to a lot of us cuz we had just about given up complete hopes Brian of ever ever ever obtained any one of these for our collection the money deer makes from this deal will clearly enable him to finish the defender the contract calls for the zero to be delivered in time for next year's bombing of Pearl Harbor it must be in perfect flying condition as it turns out deer already has a zero at the kmen Airfield however it is not yet in perfect flying condition in fact an aircraft magazine will call this one of the most difficult restoration jobs in the history of Aviation it's no wonder really that people did laugh because this stuff is absolute junk it's you know it we shot the ribbons sat out there for 30 years in the rain it rotted it corroded they were bombed they were strafed they were shot up 15 years before deert had gone to the South Pacific in search of the remains of Japanese aircraft there was rumored to be a few left on the island of Bal where scrub typhus and thick jungle had kept collectors away for 38 years with the help of six natives he cut his way into the jungle and and found his zero it was sitting on what was once a Runway where it had been destroyed by enemy gunfire before it could get off the ground surrounding it were the graves of its ground crew and pilot they cut the airplane to pieces and hauled it out on their [Music] backs working in his small shop with basic tools they begin a restoration job considerably more difficult than building an entirely new aircraft from scratch 90% of the wing had to be fabricated from new metal the original Japanese magnesium had simply dissolved in the jungles of Bal let's try that again I'm wondering if it's clearing here try again full left full left okay full right full right uh give me neutral yes neutral try that left hand Again full left I think that the uh snag we had is cleared now I think it's all free try again four right okay four right that looks good okay nice and solid yeah the now hard work it's a lot harder going up than it was coming down it's a good job the engine does this one was flying as the job became more and more complex deer began to write to the zero designer hero harosi for help hakashi sent his assistant to Carmen with the only set of blueprints left in the world without the drawings the job would have been hopeless 25 1/ 12° let's see it's 26 and 1/ 12° so we Plus or minus one we're right on the money you know there's something wrong with the writing on this blueprint you know it's written upside down or it's too close the paper I don't know which anyway I can't read it maybe it goes [Music] sideways right got the same thing hakashi then began to trace the Zero's number 53 56 it had been flown from the carrier Z akaku by an 18-year-old pilot it had fought at Pearl Harbor in the Battle of Coral Sea at Midway and finally at balal where the young pilot was killed and buried next to the remains of his war plane deer's contract with the Confederate Air Force called for completion within a year it has now Taken 2 and a half and the end is nowhere in sight progress payments from Texas have been suspended there is barely enough money for the [Music] materials it will be five long and difficult years for deert and his family before the zero is completed yet throughout deert remains optimistic there's malaria mosquitoes come out of there and drove so thick that when we were working we had to have one man with a palm PR knocking the mosquitoes off the other man so he could work these are the gas tanks off the Val and the tail section off the Zer you notice it's just axe work axe right off in the jungle and rebuilding airplanes under these conditions is very slow work as you can see it's all Jagged edges next photo please this is typic he lectures for a modest fee at do of high schools and universities but this one's a little bit more interesting than the average because as you can see here there's a Nifty little 50 caliber bullet hole on the back side of it an Nifty little Japanese repair on the other side of it now it's quite possible that that bullet hole was picked up during the attack on Pro Harbor and if this piece could talk to you it would tell you quite a story Bob's wife Elan is equally resourceful she sets up a beauty shop in Carmen and business is good no ELA spends much of her time feeling technical questions on her husband's airplanes well like they were talking in the coffee shop that the thing is way too heavy and it's just no way it'll get off the ground it's going to be a long day this airplane's Wings span of this airplane just about the same as the span of these doors perhaps deart never really believed this day would come he's overlooked a small but important [Music] detail oh Jesus Christ we got we pull it right in the barn oh if you pull it right off he does that what it's swinging around that's getting the zero out was basically an exercise in fifth dimensional physics how's the wind Kip doing out there the problem was the airplane was bigger than the door that's all right and then the thing just had to be winched out and pulled by cables and supported every which way so that uh nothing would move in a Direction Where We didn't want it to because if it did uh something would have got bent and it would have given us another setback tail back tail back to you [Music] you well it's out it's on on the you know we may laugh a little bit at what we're doing here but the test flight in this airplane when they test through this airplane you know how they hold it out the Airfield the first zero behind an ox is that right behind a water buffalo the most advanced technically Advanced airplane in the world and they hauled it out to the Airfield for the test flate behind a water buffalo okay I've got it now good keep her keep her coming a little [Music] [Applause] [Music] more the plan is to test fly it in Carmen then fly it down to Texas first however it needs a certificate of airworthiness oh yeah I think that's can you see him down there oh yeah he's just on time that doesn't give you the right to interfere in my private life the ministry and you people are set up here to protect the general public you just said so mhm now off the end of my Runway there's not even a house for 7 miles nothing Gophers out there who is it you're protecting if it's if it's perceived as being an infraction or an infringement on your uh individual freedoms that's unfortunate but unfortunately that's the way the law is written every aircraft that flies must have a flight permit but it's also totally unacceptable well that may be but that's certainly that's the point that I'm fing you'd have to speak to the parliament of the country to change that deer has declined the certificate of a worthiness the zero had to be completely torn apart and put on a truck for the long halt [Music] [Applause] [Music] Texas even in pieces the Zero's arrival in Texas stimulates some intense emotions we have to fight for this Liberty we enjoy it we cannot uh let our guard down we've got to stay up with the space program and just like we whip the Japs and everybody else in the world we can't let our guard down I hope that that zero has a little bit to do with that thinking in our [Music] future not getting any gas excitement fills as DEA plans to get it flying in time for the next air show in 2 weeks at first the problem sounded like a few dirty spark plugs but to deer's highly trained ear it began to sound a great deal more serious the engine's fresh oil has quickly blackened and filled with metal shavings and that's only half of it Tommy I lost half of it on the floor when I took the carp apart the transfer tube was plumped full of water the carburetor is full of water and no one has any idea how it got there so it's not if it was condensation you don't just get condensation in the carburetor you get it in the gas tanks the only thing I can see is this must have been there all along or it's picked it up somewhere along the Route but how you can't put water in the carburetor when it's on the airplane it has to come out of the tank the only other way you can get water in there is put it that fuel filter well how would you even do that it's got to come from the Boost pump and around okay but if it came from the Boost pump it has in order to get through there it's got to go through that low spot in the filter in the in the airplane and if there's any water it would be ENT trapped in there and there was no water tra in there absolutely none in fact before any water could get to the carburetor or there seems to be only one suitable explanation there is someone on the base trying to sabotage what they see as an enemy airplane I mean no carburetor in the world going to work under those conditions I don't give a damn who build it under tight security and understandable paranoia they set about rebuilding the zeros engine yet one more [Music] [Music] time surrounded by the remains of American bombers they often wondered if this wasn't simply the wrong place to try and coax an old Japanese war plane back to [Music] [Applause] life after six more months of work the controversy continues over whether the airplane is safe to fly well I say it's airworthy and we need to go on and fly I I have information on this you never know what the hell is truth or fancy in this outfit but uh the fact is that I just think you would be at risk and the airplane would be at risk any airplane may be at risk when you fly or let you but you want to remove every damn risk you every risk you can before you fly the thing we've we're we're in within reason we're it's it's in reasonably good flying condition and I say we ought to fly it well don't forget to test off your parachute and pull your leg straps up before you leave it'll knock your underwear off when you open if you don't the Confederate Air Force's Chief test pilot Lefty Gartner decides to to fly the airplane and settle the debate once and for all it was an incredible sight just like you'd gone back in time and you were actually standing on the deck of the Japanese carriers standing on the deck of Zak Kaku on the morning of December 7th 1941 because uh of all the eyes that saw that very airplane do its thing there I was 40 some years in in the future watching the same [Music] [Music] [Music] thing [Applause] hey look at Lefty live look at that thing go man look at that he's still daging that gear and he's going like everything wonder what's wrong with the gear why you oh he's got a small hydraulic problem I wonder if he knows it's down [Music] for an airplane that had rotted in the jungle for 40 years the legendary zero is powerful Nimble and perfectly balanced it's the kind of airplane that would seduce any fighter pilot and Lefty Gartner is no [Music] [Applause] [Music] exception look out he did it he did roll did it roll first roll Inc he left you and do that Bo roll a t FL look at [Music] [Music] this there he [Applause] is he just w't go home tonight well who says it w sit there sleep in it all [Music] night [Music] with the success of the zero deert arranges to have the runway prepared for the First Flight of the defender today a young fellow named bright took off at the speed of light he traveled all day in a relative way and came back last Thursday night news of the flight spreads quickly around Carmen and is greeted with guarded enthusiasm most the talk around the bars is that that thing is never going to fly it's probably going to crash again or something in that no I don't think so It's oddly shaped like most airplanes have two wings and a tail and that's how you do it and it's I don't know I the design is just so different and it's hard to believe that it can and fly the way it's shaped I don't know I don't think it's going to fly because it looks like it's too heavy and like it's wings are the body looks too heavy and the wings are sort of short this car will serve as Chase one I'll have the fire bottle here in case we need it and I'll be tracking right alongside the aircraft so that if anything does go wrong I'll be there to get the aircraft open get Bob out uh put out a fire if there is one and uh hopefully I'm just wasting my time but uh the idea is that I got to be there and this car is the ideal answer for that so this is what we use we're not like nasau we don't have a t38 switch on [Laughter] [Applause] [Laughter] [Applause] clarire I got to get it up to the point where it's up to takeoff speed and I can tell with the balance of the a is doing but where's where does he go to work when you're not around anymore well I'm in the safest airplane in the world I Prov that but don't forget you owe me five bucks for dog food from yesterday I'll be around to P let's not have any more of that blooding Gore and down the runway this time if something does happen you get out there with that fire extinguisher right on the double okay I got got it in then try okay okay good luck okay very [Music] good they've decided the defender will fly into history with call numbers following those of the great Avro Arrow deer is keenly aware that Canada's credibility as a builder of fighter aircraft rides solely on the wings of this single Defender [Music] [Music] yeah [Applause] I I knew it was going to happen no big deal you okay what happened a spring break I think one of your wheels fell off are you okay the wheels fell off know I didn't fall off God damn here Bob don't get the side yeah more the C the frame we take that wheel pant off probably the nose wheel will still work it's more of the framework I think isn't it these screws out of here and see if we can get the the nose wheel to work enough so that we can take it back to the worm we're going to need a pipe to put on here to tweak it straight I don't think we have to tweak it straight I think it'll work just the way it is we get rid of this bearing what do you think happened Bob well the wind hit me the the wind uh the casting on I came around the bush there the shear wind shear hit the uh hit the wing kicked it over on on this side and when I got it back with the arer on uh it went the other way and then that side I hit it too hard see I came back into the wind too hard and it would did this yeah and the Outriggers wouldn't take it scary not really quite gentle really yeah but uh that gear is not good that's not it's a good idea it just didn't work is they fixed the defender overnight and tried again the next day to get it into the air [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] for our first attempt it's showed us a lot you going to stay with this design no no no just SC this design completely what we need is a low SL airplane with lots of horsepower that's simple that any dog gone fool can fly that's certainly not what this that's what you told me this was oh that's what I thought I was building it looked good on paper but it didn't work out so you want a completely a completely new design absolutely come back to the drawing board and start again this thing is just not doing the job it's just not the airplane that we want well good grief man we spent 5 years building this thing and fiddling around with it and retuning it and redesigning it how long have NASA been working on their uh space shuttle here on the edge of Carmen Manitoba Canada's only builder of fighter aircraft remains hard at work on his latest [Music] project what I think we're going to do for one of the modifications we're going to do in this airplane is when we load it with armor we're going to have to move this cockpit back closer to the wings which means we're going to get a longer nose we're going to put an airbag in that nose so if you run yourself into a mountain that you got the airbag between between you and the mountain not one of those airbags that inflates uh no this will be permanently inflated installed in the nose don't you think it's a good idea you know you you're going to bounce off the mountain and you'll roll the wings up in a ball knock the tail off and everything else and you're going to get one merry ride but you will walk away from it and it's the only airplane in the world that'll do that you're not going to look anywhere in the world and see another bird like this one this is a unique animal just like the red Brothers I'm sure they would like to have started with a 747 instead of what they did and worked their way down you know it's uh you have to work your way up yeah there weren't too many airplanes that uh could have given a pilot survivability for the accident you had any other airplane would have probably killed me I learned a lot from that machine even even you know in the fact that it it didn't pan out the way it should have and a lot of respects it did teach us a lot well at least we got was to I years [Music] ago [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]