Rancho_runner/Getty Images Glacier Girl flies again. On May 2, a WWII-era Lockheed P-38 Lightning nicknamed "Glacier Girl" took flight for the first time in two years, when pilot Steve Hinton Sr. flew it for the Lewis Air Legends Foundation. However, a two-year break from flying is but a cat nap for the P-38, as it spent nearly 50 years under ice in glacial ice in Greenland, hence the nickname. Glacier Girl's return to the sky is a testament to the remarkable work done to retrieve the plane and restore it, as well as the incredible luck that nature didn't destroy it when it had the chance. In 1978, Pat Epps and Richard Taylor, Atlanta-based businessmen and pilots, heard tale of downed WWII planes buried in Greenland's ice and snow. In 1980, they decided it would be a worthwhile adventure to go dig the planes out and restore them. Little did they know how difficult it would be. "Our thoughts were that the tails would be sticking out of the snow," Taylor said, according to Smithsonian Magazine. "We'd sweep snow off the wings and shovel them out a little bit, crank the planes up, and fly them home. Of course, it didn't happen." It wasn't until 1992 that explorers would pull just one plane from the ice, exactly 50 years after it landed, and it took another decade for it to take its first flight since 1942. How did the P-38 Lightning end up under the ice? EAA/YouTube In 1942, U.S. Army Air Force pilots were supposed to fly six P-38 Lightnings and two Boeing B-17E Flying Fortresses from the U.S. to Scotland, with stops in Greenland and Iceland along the way, to get the planes over to the European theater. However, during the flight to Iceland, the pilots ran into bad weather before even leaving Greenland and were forced to fly blind in the clouds, so they decided to turn back. However, they received coded transmissions about all of the available air bases being closed due to bad weather. So all the pilots decided to stick together and land on the glacial ice. One pilot did a bit of a test landing, bouncing his wheels on the ice to see if it was hard enough to land. It seemed it, so he attempted a real landing. However, his front wheel dug into the ice and the entire plane flipped over onto its back. The pilot wasn't injured and crawled out but the rest of the pilots saw what happened and decided to land the planes on their bellies the their landing gear up, to avoid the same fate. Every pilot survived, but they had to live in the B-17s for 11 days before they were finally rescued. The pilots made it off the ice, but the planes stayed. Over the next 50 years, the planes sat there getting covered by glacial snow and ice. By the time explorers found the planes, only one was deemed to be in good enough condition for a recovery attempt: Glacier Girl. However, when they finally got there in 1992, Glacier Girl was buried under 262 feet of ice. How'd they got Glacier Girl out EAA/YouTube I'm sure it won't surprise you that the recovery attempt cost millions.The crew used a custom-designed "Super Gopher," which was essentially a hot water-heated cone that would melt holes in the ice. They melted several four-foot diameter holes, using pumps to remove the meltwater, and lowered crew members down into the ice where they used a hot water cannon to create a 50-foot-wide cavern. They then disassembled the plane and sent its pieces back to the surface. Sadly, they didn't find Captain America down there. When the plane was finally brought back to the U.S., its restoration process began. Thankfully, about 80% of the P-38's original parts were used in the restoration, so there isn't a Ship of Theseus paradox to ponder. Glacier Girl is almost entirely original, with just a few new parts. It's also said to have the only full set of known operational, original P-38 machine guns in existence. For the last two years, Glacier Girl has been undergoing a few repairs but it's finally back in the sky and it's great to see.
