Minh Venator, 51, loves the challenge of transforming a roomful of what looks like junk into a gleaming jet airplane that will eventually taxi away from his Minh Jet facility at the Hollister Municipal Airport and fly to some far off warbird collector.
Warbirds are his specialty, and people who like to fly the ex-military fighters and bombers know he’s the go-to guy when it comes to the mechanics of operating them. Today, he maintains and restores mostly Aero L-39 Albatros jets that once flew for Soviet-bloc countries.
But on April 30, 1975, his future did not looks so bright. He was 11. He had an American father and Vietnamese mother. On that day, Saigon was in the process of falling to the People’s Army of Vietnam. Terrified civilians, along with South Vietnamese military and government personnel, were trying to escape by any means possible, including by helicopter from the rooftop of the CIA station.
“When my father got out he was one of the people who you see when the helicopters were landing on the aircraft carriers and then being pushed over the side,” he said. “We got out because the company chartered boats to get us out. When we got here all we had was what we were carrying.”
They ended up in Hollister because his father was a lawyer and he had a friend who lived here.
“He wanted to be a lawyer here and then wanted to stay here when he retired, which he did,” he said. “He wanted to be a gentleman farmer.”
The family has farmed walnuts since 1975. For the last 20 years, Venator has been a one-man company who hires private contractors to maintain a dozen or so jets a year. He is also restoring an airplane that first flew during World War II.
“I use private contractors because warbird people are inherently gypsies,” he said. “They go from one restoration to another restoration. Right now, I have four people here. Some will come for a couple months then leave. I bring in teams that specialize in certain things.”
But there was a time when Venator had “zero interest in or knowledge of aviation.”
“I was born in Vietnam, but pretty much grew up all over Asia. I went to school in Hong Kong and came to the U.S. for college,” he said.
With a degree in engineering, he joined the Merchant Marines.
“My interest was on the mechanical side. I was fascinated to see how things work.”
He left the Merchant Marines after a few years and held a number of jobs.
“My first aviation experience was in 1993, when a friend in Hollister recruited me to help him restore a North American F-86 Sabrejet from the Korean War. From there I branched out, maintaining P-51 Mustangs, North American T-28 Trojan trainer and others. All were ex-military aircraft in civilian hands.”
Now he restores warbirds of many eras, but primarily jets.
He explained the ease he experienced in shifting from maritime to aeronautical engineering.
“The knowledge base is there. It’s bolt-to-bolt how things work. There are mathematical equations that transfer to aerodynamics. An engineer to me is someone who has the ability to reason how things work. You see the path of how things flow. You’re not afraid of mechanical things.
“In the late ’90s the most popular airplane to come in was the L-39 Albatros,” he said. “I was fortunate enough to get in on the front end of it and got some training at the factory in Czechoslovakia. So, now I specialize mainly in the L-39 and a few other warbirds.”
He said Czechoslovakia manufactured the L-39s for all Russian satellite countries as an advanced fighter-trainer and ground-support aircraft.
“Some models of this plane have guns and bombs,” he said. “Some countries still use them in their inventory, like Vietnam, Thailand, Egypt and Hungary. Mother Russia gave away a lot of them to their satellite countries.”
He described the ex-military jet as the best bang for the buck.
“You can get one fairly inexpensive,” he said. “It’s not a commuter jet; it’s a toy. It can cost anywhere from $150,000 to $350,000. Jet warbirds are not that expensive because of the price of fuel.”
He would rather work on the Soviet planes because their design is simple compared with American-built jet warbirds, which he described as complicated and cumbersome.
“Eastern-bloc aircraft are built like tractors, so they can survive,” he said. “They put a lot of thought into the design. They’re very simple and robust.”
On the other side of the workshop, behind his current L-39 project, sits the gleaming skeleton of a seven-year restoration project. It’s called an A-26 Invader, built by Douglas Aircraft in 1944. After the war it was converted to civilian use.
“It had an executive interior, plush carpeting, leather chairs,” he said. “When it was built it was a very fast, twin-engine, piston aircraft. It was as fast as a P-51 Mustang.”
After acquiring it in New Mexico, where it was abandoned, Venator said he discovered the plane had an interesting history.
“Before New Mexico it was in Florida and Oklahoma, where some oil company owned it. Before that it was in France, then South America,” he said. “Then for two years it just disappeared in Vietnam.”
That was probably because the A-26 was one of the planes Air America, of CIA fame, often flew on covert missions.
The plane is now owned by Ed Noel, a Texas real estate and oil businessman.
“We’re looking at maybe $2 million to restore it,” Venator said. “By the time we’re finished with it, it’s going to be like it just rolled out of the factory.”
The most difficult part of any restoration project is finding original parts.
“We try to find original parts as much as possible, which involves calling in a lot of favors in the warbird community,” he said. “Most of the time there aren’t anymore parts. The last L-39 rolled out of the assembly plant in 1991. There are some surplus parts out there. Some parts you have to manufacture or somehow convert. When you’re restoring an airplane you’re not talking weeks—you’re talking years.”
His clients come from near and far.
“I have a client in New Zealand that we shipped an airplane to,” he said. “Then we went there and assembled it for him. I trained a guy there to maintain it. We had another client in England. We went there and took the airplane apart and brought it back here.”
When people ask him what he does for a living, he tells them that he restores ex-military aircraft. Most people, he said, seem to think restoring aircraft is a hobby, not an actual occupation.
“It is sort of a hobby, I guess, because people like me who restore airplanes, especially warbirds, aren’t going to be rich,” he said. “The only reason we do it is we love to see old things fly again. It’s a challenge to take a pile of a thousand parts of metal and somehow put it together and make it fly.
“Over a year, we inspect and maintain about 12 aircraft a year. Restoration is a longer process. That one (the L-39) took us two and a half years. If an airplane comes in that needs servicing, we stop the restoration.”
His reputation has also spread to the jet-racing circuit.
“At the Reno Air Races, my official title is ramp boss for the jet class,” he said. “I control all plane movements on the ground. I get them ready to fly, act as their advisor for mechanical issues. I’m the guy who is between the Reno Air Racing Association and the jet pilots.”
Before each race in Reno, many of the competitors bring their planes to him in Hollister to check them out. One such pilot is Vicky Benzing, who recently appeared at the airshow in Hollister.
“I maintain one jet that she flies. She also test flies some of the airplanes I take care of. We have a couple of modifications for speed racing and she test flies that for us. She’s supposed to fly this one sometime next week,” he said, pointing at the nearby L-39.
When he’s done with the L-39, he’ll go back to restoring the A-26, which, he said, has not flown in more than 20 years. He’s proud of the fact that not a single plane brought to him on a truck has left the same way.
They’ve all flown out.
“It’s exciting just to see your creation fly,” he said, “and you have to be right the first time.”
