Addison Pemberton calls his obsession with antique aircraft old airplane disease.


Its symptoms include working thousands of hours and spending thousands of dollars restoring and rebuilding airplanes from the late 1920s and early 1930s for small financial gains.


He says there is no cure for this affliction nor is he searching for one.


Pemberton is co-owner and president of Pemberton & Sons Aviation LLC, of Spokane Valley. The business restores vintage aircraft, sometimes rebuilding planes from scratch at Felts Field.


Our motto is Dream it like you mean it, Pemberton says. Its a work of love.


He supports his so-called sickness with another business he heads here. Hes president of Liberty Lake-based Scanivalve Corp. He owns that company with his brother, Jim. It manufactures high-tech pressure sensors that test the effects of airflow on aircraft, aircraft parts, jet engines, and automobiles. It employs about 45 people and has customers around the world, including Boeing Co., Lockheed Martin Corp., and Mercedes-Benz.


I work about 50 hours a week at Scanivalve and about 40 hours a week restoring airplanes, he says. You cant do this for the money. Ive known people who tried it, and they starved.


He owns Pemberton & Sons Aviation with his wife, Peggy May, and his sons, Jay and Ryan. He has restored and sold airplanes for more than 30 years, but formed the company only about a year ago for investment-related reasons.


Pemberton has renovated 18 airplanes and sold 14 of them. He says the companys antique airplanes are extremely expensive and cant be insured affordably.


Our planes start at about $100,000 and go up, Pemberton says. Its hard to put a dollar figure on these planes.


Pemberton & Sons Aviation uses volunteer labor to restore its planes. Volunteers spend countless hours performing tedious and meticulous jobs, such as sanding wood, aligning doors, and welding metal. Theyre rewarded with lunch or dinner and maybe a piece of Peggy Mays apple pie for the nights and weekends they spend working on the planes with the Pembertons.


We have about five people that are pretty consistent and about 30 people who are involved, he says. Its a dedicated group who loves antique airplanes.


The companys headquarters are in a hangar at Felts Field. It occupies about 5,000 square feet of floor space, and its space looks like a small museum, including old airplanes, a mannequin in a rare pilots leather flight suit and other types of aviation memorabilia.


The companys hangar is crowded, and its not easy to move around. Several biplanes from a bygone era catch the imagination, including a bright red 1941 Beechcraft D-17 Staggerwing, which has a top speed of about 200 miles per hour, and a dark blue 1931 Stearman 4DM Senior Speedmail, which American Airways flew to deliver mail for the U.S. Post Office Dept. Its one of five flying in the world, says Pemberton.


The operation is expanding by building two hangars at Felts Field. Pemberton says a new 4,500-square-foot hangar will house Pemberton & Sons machine shop, and a smaller 3,600-square-foot new hangar will be used for storage.


He plans to begin using the new hangars in November. He declines to disclose the cost of that project.


Aviation love affair


Pemberton says he always has been fascinated with antique airplanes. He has flown more than 10,000 hours, and frequently receives calls from other airplane enthusiasts who are asking for advice on mechanical problems or on where they can find parts for old planes.


As a kid I grew up in San Diego and lived near an airport, he says. I was fascinated with old airplanes. I wanted to fly them, and I wanted to know how they worked.


Pemberton talks about the companys latest project, a complete reconstruction of a 1928 Boeing Co. Model 40-C, like a kid who just soloed for the first time.


When we are done, it will be the oldest commercial Boeing (plane) flying in the world, says Pemberton.


There are two other Boeing 40 series planes in the world, but neither fly, says Mike Lombardi, Boeings company historian.


The Boeing 40 series was our first full-production airplane, says Lombardi. From a historic value it is priceless. I dont know what kind of dollar amount it could be worth.


He says that the four-passenger biplane was worth about $25,000 in 1928 and that Boeing made 77 of its 40 series airplanes. The airplane was designed to fly from Seattle to San Francisco and Chicago to San Francisco. It carried mail and was the backbone of Boeings fleet for a couple of years, Lombardi says.


Pemberton & Sons Aviation plans to take the Boeing 40-C on a national tour once its completed and market a book and video about the project.


Today, though, the plane hardly resembles an aircraft, with its missing wings, engine, and tail. So far Pemberton & Sons Aviation has spent four years and more than 100,000 hours restoring the plane. The company says it will spend more than $100,000 on parts and materials for the Boeing 40-C, including buying a World War II era Pratt & Whitney supercharged radial piston engine.


Projects like these are like eating an elephant, Pemberton says. It seems overwhelming at first, but slowly you get it done. Weve got another four years to go.


Vintage airplane parts are nearly impossible to find, he says. So, the Felts Field company either has to manufacture them in its machine shop or pay somebody else to do the job.


Pemberton doesnt just restore old airplanes. He delves into an airplanes history, researching who flew the aircraft, where it flew, and what happened to it. He seems to enjoy uncovering the histories of the planes as much as the renovation work.


He interviews former pilots and their surviving relatives and friends. He collects pictures and other information, such as newspaper articles about crashes.


Pembertons Boeing 40-C crashed in the mountains of southern Oregon, near the small town of Canyonville, in 1928 while flying from Seattle to San Francisco. The pilot survived the crash, but his lone passenger was killed. The wreckage remained on the mountain for almost 70 years until it was salvaged in 1996.


The passenger was a jeweler, and for years people would go looking for diamonds, he says. The crash site had all kinds of artifacts, including materials used to sift through dirt.


Pemberton bought the aircrafts remains from the salvager in 2000. A rusting frame and boxes of twisted parts are all thats left of the plane.


We were able to get about 50 parts off the wreck that can be used in the restoration, he says. Mostly small things like door hatches and the control panel.


Boeing provided Pemberton & Sons with blueprints to reconstruct the airplane.


We have 900 microfilm drawings and without those, we wouldnt be able to do the task, he says. You would have to re-engineer the aircraft and you would end up with something different than you intended.