Hours of work realised as remade tail put back on Uiver memorial plane

The end fin and rudder of the Douglas DC2 were reattached on Wednesday as part of an ongoing restoration project run by the Uiver Community Memorial Trust.

That followed 12 months of working to recondition the fin's panels, with 80 per cent able to be used again.

Trust chairman Pieter Mol described the re-riveting of the tail as a terrific milestone.

"It's starting to look more like an aeroplane than a submarine, which it looked like before," he said.

"There was a lot of corrosion in the tail because birds had built their nests in there."

Project manager Russ Jacob, part of four who worked on the tail, was rapt.

"It's the culmination of 12 months work and it's good because a lot of the time you work on the fuselage and you don't see much progress going on but when you see a fin on it makes a difference," he said.

"It was in very bad condition whole sections of the rear empennage were corroded out."

The tail had been removed five years ago when the plane was first moved into its hangar after having spent years sitting in outside at Albury airport.

Key guidance for the tail makeover team came from those with experience based at Moorabbin airport's Australian National Aviation Museum.

The fin was fixed with Albury mayor Kevin Mack there, with the rudder, which needs fabric skins to be complete, added later on Wednesday.

The addition of the tail is a big step in the ongoing restoration which does not have a precise completion date.

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The DC2 was first used by Eastern Air Lines in the US on passenger routes before arriving in Australia and being part of the RAAF during World War II.

It was bought as a wreck and remade to appear as the Uiver and displayed outside Albury airport from 1979.

Mr Mol said the outline of lettering stating "The Great Silver Fleet" had been uncovered in stripping back the fuselage of the DC2.

It was a slogan that was used by Eastern Air Lines from the 1930s.

Mr Mol said the trust had begun a Donate a Rivet campaign last month which had raised $15,000 and was encouraging people to give $2 for each fastener needed for the restoration.

"We'll keep going on with the restoration at the best pace we can," he said.

"It's very much dependent on finance and volunteers and volunteers are a big challenge, to have a large enough group to do the job at a level and standard we want."

Work is carried out every Wednesday and Saturday with an average of eight hours being done on each of those days by the team of unpaid helpers.