As regular readers will know, the Military Aviation Museum took delivery of a historic Lockheed PV-2 Harpoon on November 1st, the result of an incredibly generous donation from the American Military Heritage Foundation (AMHF). Remarkable (and rapid) financial support from our Museum's membership (and one anonymous contributor in particular) made it possible for us to move on this opportunity with the necessary alacrity to cover the costs associated with preparing the aircraft for its flight home, not to mention the recovery of a treasure trove of spare parts, tooling and tools from AMHF stores.

The Museum is incredibly grateful to everyone who was a part of this gift, but we would be remiss not to also personally thank the AMHF crew who flew the Harpoon home for us: Glen Matejcek (pilot), Jeff Sickel (copilot) and Corey Lucas (crew chief). These three regularly flew with the aircraft during the many years it was active on the air show circuit, so it only made sense for us to tap into their experience for this important journey.

I had the opportunity to chat with Glen Matejcek a couple of days after his momentous flight, and we thought our readers might enjoy the following excerpts from that conversation (gently edited for clarity) to gain some perspective on what the journey involved and Matejcek's feelings about the Harpoon's history and its future at the Military Aviation Museum.

Preparations:

RMA: How many of you were aboard the Harpoon for this flight?

Glen: There were three of us on board, including myself, my copilot and the fellow that sits in the third seat; he doesn't have an official title, but the emergency hydraulics, emergency gear extension, emergency brakes controls are all behind the cockpit, so you need another body! This constitutes our minimum crew.

A very happy crew aboard the Harpoon soon after they crossed from West Virginia into Virginia on the journey to Suffolk Executive Airport. Glen Matejcek is on the right, with Jeff Sickel in the co-pilot's seat and crew chief, Corey Lucas, to the rear. (image by Glen Matejcek)
A very happy crew aboard the Harpoon soon after they crossed from West Virginia into Virginia on the journey to Suffolk Executive Airport. Glen Matejcek is on the right, with Jeff Sickel in the co-pilot's seat and crew chief, Corey Lucas, to the rear. (image by Glen Matejcek)

RMA: I followed your flight online through FlightAware, and noticed that you made several short hops in the aircraft before the final departure for Virginia Beach. Presumably this was to check that everything was working as it should, and that you were comfortable with the systems—especially as the aircraft hadn’t flown in a while.

Glen: Yes, we wanted to exercise the airplane… We didn't want to get halfway there and then have something manifest itself. So, we did fly in the pattern. Also… it’s been five years since we've flown the airplane, so we needed to make peace with it as well. We each got four take offs and four landings. The aircraft performed very well; we were pleased with that. We got comfortable with it again… so we returned to the [airport] and ordered fuel to get us out [to Virginia] with a comfortable margin in case there were some unforeseen difficulties.

A screen capture showing the Harpoon's first flight after completing her annual inspection on November 1, 2025. The crew performed eight of these short hops, pilot and copilot taking turns in control, to check out the aircraft's systems and regain familiarity with the airplane before the final push to Virginia. (image via FlightAware)
A screen capture showing the Harpoon's first flight after completing her annual inspection on November 1, 2025. The crew performed eight of these short hops, pilot and copilot taking turns in control, to check out the aircraft's systems and regain familiarity with the airplane before the final push to Virginia. (image via FlightAware)

Glen: Once we were done with [the test flying], all systems worked fine, so we took off… to the east and made the two left turns on the downwind. It just kept going and climbing… It was a cool day, but we had a pretty good tailwind. There were some lower clouds in front of us, so we incrementally climbed to stay above the clouds. We were using flight following and talking to air traffic control, keeping low for crossing traffic.

And then they offered us 10,000 feet due to crossing traffic and other traffic in the area—which is an unconventional altitude for our operation… It was chilly! Normally that altitude is for instrument traffic, but they offered it to us on visual [flight rules]. So we took it. And during economy cruise, we got remarkably good ground speeds.

Co-pilot Jeff Sickel's right hand is on the controls while Glen Matejcek captures the moment soon after the Harpoon crossed into Virginia on its delivery flight to the Military Aviation Museum. (image by Glen Matejcek)
Co-pilot Jeff Sickel's right hand is on the controls while Glen Matejcek captures the moment soon after the Harpoon crossed into Virginia on its delivery flight to the Military Aviation Museum. (image by Glen Matejcek)

A view from the pilot's seat on the Harpoon's delivery flight to the Military Aviation Museum's facility at Suffolk Executive Airport. (image by Glen Matejcek)

A view out of the pilot's side window showing an impressive array of contrails spreading out at higher altitude. The Harpoon was cruising along at roughly 10,000' for much of the journey from Indianapolis to Virginia Beach. (image by Glen Matejcek)

A view of the Harpoon's instrument panel as the Harpoon cruises along at just under 200knots indicated air speed , but tail winds boosted their travel rate to an impressive 232 knots ground speed! (image by Glen Matejcek)

A record of the Harpoon's flight east to Virginia on November 1, 2025. The chart below the map shows the altitude and airspeed timeline on the trip. (image via FlightAware.com)
A record of the Harpoon's flight east to Virginia on November 1, 2025. The chart below the map shows the altitude and airspeed timeline on the trip. (image via FlightAware.com)

Homeward Bound:

RMA: How did the Harpoon perform on the flight?

Glen: The plane ran very smoothly and just hummed right along… like a 4,000 horse-powered sewing machine. All the engine needles were nice and parallel and steady, and it just ran very, very nicely. There were some minor issues; a couple of the gauges stuck—you know, it's been sitting for five years—a couple of them needed to be tapped on a little bit. But all the systems were just fine. And we came straight in from the west and flew the traffic pattern to land to the southwest [on Runway 22] and took it to the [Fighter Factory] hangar.

Glen Matejcek and the AMHF crew aboard the Harpoon just after engine shutdown in front of the Fighter Factory hangar at Suffolk Executive Airport having just completed the nearly 700mile flight from Indiana on November 1, 2025. (image by Sid Barteau)
Glen Matejcek and the AMHF crew aboard the Harpoon just after engine shutdown in front of the Fighter Factory hangar at Suffolk Executive Airport having just completed the nearly 700mile flight from Indiana on November 1, 2025. (image by Sid Barteau)

Glen: Our job was to get it there and that's what we did. We parked the plane in front of the hangar and secured it. There are canopy and turret covers and inlet plugs and engine covers and all that needed to be installed. And then the the log book paperwork [needed filling out]. Having done all that, [Museum volunteer] Sid Barteau took us to our hotel and we had dinner and then got some sleep. Next morning, Sid picked us up, took us out to the museum, and we got a pretty awesome guided tour of the facilities!

While our newly-acquired Harpoon obviously has a modern log book to cover its civilian operations, the original U.S. Navy log also came with the aircraft. This is an incredibly rare situation, as such documents were usually destroyed once the aircraft was struck from the inventory. It will be a treasure trove of information about all of the maintenance and modifications to the aircraft in its service career, where it was based, as well as the records cataloguing each flight the aircraft made, the destinations involved and who was in command. This will make for some excellent articles in the future. (image by Keegan Chetwynd)
While our newly-acquired Harpoon obviously has a modern log book to cover its civilian operations, the original U.S. Navy log also came with the aircraft. This is an incredibly rare situation, as such documents were usually destroyed once the aircraft was struck from the inventory. It will be a treasure trove of information about all of the maintenance and modifications to the aircraft in its service career, where it was based, as well as the records cataloguing each flight the aircraft made, the destinations involved and who was in command. This will make for some excellent articles in the future. (image by Keegan Chetwynd)

Harpoon History:

RMA: Glen, your organization owned and operated the Harpoon for many years. What made the aircraft special for you?

Glen: It’s very rare. There weren't that many made as it came out towards the end of the war... It was kind of an unsung hero. It was a very, very potent airplane, [but] most people have never heard of it, and people still don’t understand what it was capable of. [For instance] very few people know anything about the Thousand Mile War in the Aleutians,… and that's what we tried to represent and the memory we're trying to keep alive and help educate people about some of the things that went on and the sacrifices that [Harpoon crews] made during wartime that nobody knows about.

The side art for the Harpoon, nicknamed Island Doll, features a woman with a vintage Aleut harpoon hovering over a representative depiction of Alaska's Aleutian Archipeligo. Note the cross-hairs highlignt the islands of Kiska and Attu, which were under Japanese control for a while—the only North American territory to be captured by the Empire of Japan during WWII. Towards the end of WWII, Harpoons were based on both Attu and Kiska, from where they performed many long range missions, flying as much as 1,400 miles round trip in apalling conditions over the frigid North Pacific to attack Japanese shipping as far away as the Kuril Islands, which belonged to Japan until Soviet Russia seized them in the last days of WWII. (image via Keegan Chetwynd)
The side art for the Harpoon, nicknamed Island Doll, features a woman with a vintage Aleut harpoon hovering over a representative depiction of Alaska's Aleutian Archipeligo. Note the cross-hairs highlignt the islands of Kiska and Attu, which were under Japanese control for a while—the only North American territory to be captured by the Empire of Japan during WWII. Towards the end of WWII, Harpoons were based on both Attu and Kiska, from where they performed many long range missions, flying as much as 1,400 miles round trip in apalling conditions over the frigid North Pacific to attack Japanese shipping as far away as the Kuril Islands, which belonged to Japan until Soviet Russia seized them in the last days of WWII. (image via Keegan Chetwynd)
Victory markings testifying to the type's prowess in the Pacific campaign during the last year of WWII. (image via Keegan Chetwynd)
Victory markings testifying to the type's prowess in the Pacific campaign during the last year of WWII. (image via Keegan Chetwynd)

Glen: They were miserable conditions [in the Aleutians], and this airplane really helped change that. It gave them the range to actually go and do something. And that's an interesting story. It's a piece of history that really shouldn't be forgotten and it's been good to help tell those stories.

Navy crewmen loading a torpedo aboard a PV-2 at a base in the Aleutians in preparation for a strike against Japanese shipping near the Kuril Islands in April 1945. The arctic-like conditions must have been horrific to deal with, and yet the aircraft would fly their missions in weather like this. A nose-mounted AN/APS-3 air-to-surface radar helped crews locate and target enemy shipping, but could also assist with navigation and homing. (image via Naval History and Heritage Command)
Navy crewmen loading a torpedo aboard a PV-2 at a base in the Aleutians in preparation for a strike against Japanese shipping near the Kuril Islands in April 1945. The arctic-like conditions must have been horrific to deal with, and yet the aircraft would fly their missions in weather like this. A nose-mounted AN/APS-3 air-to-surface radar helped crews locate and target enemy shipping, but could also assist with navigation and homing. (image via Naval History and Heritage Command)
A grainy shot from the cockpit of a VPB-139 Harpoon showing two other aircraft from the unit during a rocket attack against Japanese shipping in the Kuril islands. The snow and poor visibility in this scene are endemic of the kinds of combat conditions which Harpoon crews found themselves in during the Thousand Mile War. (image via National Archives)
A grainy shot from the cockpit of a VPB-139 Harpoon showing two other aircraft from the unit during a rocket attack against Japanese shipping in the Kuril islands. The snow and poor visibility in this scene are endemic of the kinds of combat conditions which Harpoon crews found themselves in during the Thousand Mile War. (image via National Archives)

Glen: Now, this aircraft was also fully de-iced when it was in service. It not only had anti-icing, it had an alcohol tank; they could pump alcohol to the windscreens and to the propellers to keep them free of ice. But it also had large heat exchangers on the exhaust and you could take the heat from the exhaust and run it out through the leading edges of the wings, and run it to the tail and do the leading edges of the tail to keep the ice off them. The only problem with that is you could either deice the airframe or you could deice the crew!

Yeah, there is no heat in the airplane when they are fighting ice outside!

Last Looks:

RMA: How do you feel about the Harpoon moving to the Military Aviation Museum?

Glen: We knew, on paper and in conversation, that it seemed like a good home for the Harpoon. But … you don't know until you're there. One of the fellas who was reticent to let the airplane leave the general area around our home base was on the crew, and he came out and was suitably impressed… and very glad that it's going to a good home. It was a great time. It was a great experience and a fascinating collection... if I lived closer, it would be fun to participate on a regular basis. 

I think it's definitely a worthy place for [the Harpoon]… You guys have a very deep talent pool there…

RMA: Thank you very much! We are so glad that you chose our Museum to continue telling the story with this magnificent aeroplane, and grateful that you see what a fabulous team we have working there!

The Fighter Factory:

The entire team at the Fighter Factory, the Museum's maintenance and restoration wing, are owed an enormous debt of gratitude for their valiant efforts in preparing the Harpoon for its flight home—in particular Al Lintz, Cody Busse, Sebastian Angelo & Allen Browning. While they rarely receive much of the limelight, we are all so proud of their dedication and their achievements!

 

The Fighter Factory team putting the Harpoon to bed in their hangar at Suffolk Executive Airport. (image by Sid Barteau)
The Fighter Factory team putting the Harpoon to bed in their hangar at Suffolk Executive Airport. (image by Sid Barteau)
Cody Busse guiding the tug operator in moving the Harpoon into the Fighter Factory's hangar at Suffolk Executive Airport. (image by Sid Barteau)
Cody Busse guiding the tug operator in moving the Harpoon into the Fighter Factory's hangar at Suffolk Executive Airport. (image by Sid Barteau)