Restored Grumman Avenger completes first flight above Hamilton skies

The Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum successfully completed its first flight of a newly restored Grumman Avenger aircraft Friday morning.

Piloted by James Bradley, volunteers along with museum staff rebuilt the plane over the past 17 years.

“It flew like a transport truck — very heavy on the controls,” said Bradley. “The airplane performed flawlessly.”

Bradley says he’s carrying on the family tradition, after his father started the museum in 1972 who also got to fly the original aircraft in 1976 before it was restored in 1976.

The Grumman Avenger is an American torpedo bomber, known for its military action during World War II at the Battle of Midway.

Museum staff say the plane was built by General Motors in 1945 and flew with the U.S. Navy until the early 1950s.

After its military career, it was converted to a fire bomber with the installation of chemical tanks in the bomb bay — it fought fires in California from 1963 to 1972.

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The aircraft was purchased by Forest Protection Ltd. in New Brunswick in 1976 and later bought by a French aircraft preservation group in 2000.

The museum acquired the Avenger with the help of a generous donor in 2009.

After over 50,000 hours of restoration work, the volunteer restoration crew of around 14 people, helped to repair and rebuild the aircraft.

“They really have to put it out to those guys,” said Bradley. “They’re the ones that did all the hard work. At the end of the day, they just handed me the keys and said ‘bring it back in one piece’.”

The Avenger was restored as #86180 of the Royal Canadian Navy in an anti-submarine configuration that flew with the 880 and 881 Squadrons.

The museum will be holding an event on May 31, in dedication to the completion of the Avenger’s restoration, before making its air show debut at the 2026 Aero Gatineau-Ottawa air show in September.

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