He then sold it and it passed through a number of owners including Mr Mel Pengilly who was a Tamworth ground engineer, then to the Newcastle Aero Club and finally to Mr Ron Willis of “Uplands Station” at Boggabri. Mr Willis also had a Pientenpol which was fitted with a similar Salmson engine.

At some stage the engine in the Corben seized and could not be reoaired, so he used to swap the motor from the Pientenpol between the two aircraft.

In 1965 a young man who was 15 years old at that time attended Ron Wallis’s clearing sale and decided to buy the Corben for 65 Pounds.

It was minus the engine because the Salmson was mounted in the other aircraft for sale on the day.

That young man was Tony Foran and he had a similar dream to Jack Coomber, to get the Corben back into the air. On the day he could not afford to buy the other aircraft with the engine fitted. Incidentally the Corben had at some stage been repainted in a black and white colour scheme.

As evidenced by a number of letters Tony made a considerable effort to find another Salmson engine to install in his Corben, but was not able to locate one. He then got busy with his life and the Corben continually was moved down to the bottom of his priority list. As the years passed, things started to deteriorate and mice got into the fabric. He eventually decided to remove the wings and stack them and the fuselage in the back corner of his shed on the farm. Things remained this way for many years.

In the 1990’s Jack’s son Ross built a one quarter scale model of the Corben which apparently flew very well. It was built under the guidance of his father.

In Narromine it had been rumoured for a number of years that the Corben was somewhere in the Gunnedah area. A local man, Bob Ballhausen, who was President of the Narromine Aviation Museum at the time also had a dream of bringing the Corben back to Narromine. He decided to try and find the little plane. He made contact with the Secretary of the Tooraweena Air Show who agreed to put up a sign in the information booth at their 2009 Air Show requesting information about the Narromine aircraft. Tony Foran was at the airshow and saw the sign. He advised their Secretary that he had it in his shed. When Bob Ballhausen was passed this information, he and Ted Davies travelled to Mr Foran’s property at Malalley and spoke with him about the possibility of the Corben returning to Narromine. Tony agreed to the proposal on the grounds that its history was from Narromine and that it would be better for it to have the opportunity of being conserved and displayed rather than deteriorating in the back corner of his shed. He agreed that it should return to Narromine, but on the basis that it should never leave Narromine again.

The rest as they say is history. Bob Ballhausen, Jim Hamilton and Lindsay Edmunds travelled to Tony’s property and picked up the various bits and pieces of the little aircraft. Once it arrived back to Narromine, the decision was made that the Corben was of such great significance that it should be conserved rather than restored. This meant that as far as was possible all of the original parts and components should be used in the project.

It was also decided to apply for some grant assistance from the NSW Premier’s Office and a quote was sought from an aircraft restorer. We were able to successfully apply for 50% of the estimated cost of the work and received a grant of $26,000 from the NSW State Government. Without that financial assistance it would have been impossible to complete the project.

The Aviation Museum appointed the final dreamer Ted Davies as the Project Manager because of his passionate interest in the aircraft, his 40 odd years of aviation experience and because of his practical skills obtained from a lifetime of farming on a far western NSW sheep station.

Ted decided to call a meeting of interested Aviation Museum volunteers and quickly realized that almost all of them were also members of the Narromine Mens’ Shed. He approached the Mens’ Shed with the request for them to consider taking on the job as one of their projects. They agreed to this proposal and work commenced in September 2009.

The plane was stripped right down to the basic tubular fuselage and the long conservation process started. There was an extensive amount of work involved in stripping back the metal frame and all hands were called on to assist with this time consuming task. Security for the Corben was an issue and an advertisement was placed in the “Narromine News” seeking the loan of a shipping container that could be securely locked. An anonymous person rang up and donated a $3,000 container to the project. We thank that anonymous doner.

Piece by piece, wing by wing, bit by bit each section was cleaned, repaired as required and prime coated.

The woodwork was extremely dry to the point that it was flaking apart. Expert advice was sought from Don Beale who was the local man who restored another one of Jack Coomber’s projects, our Venture glider. He advised a special technique for renovating the wooden pieces of the Corben. This technique involved cleaning the sections down with a hot water and sugar soap solution and then applying a mixture of methylated spirits and boiled linseed oil. The results were simply quite amazing.

As it was a conservation project, it was agreed that we should use American linen to cover the various external surfaces. This fabric is much more difficult to work with than the modern synthetic materials. It proved very hard to source supplies of the American linen and our thanks go to the Australian Gliding Federation for handing over their precious supplies of this original fabric. Tautening dope also proved to be very difficult to obtain. We managed to find some dope dated 1984 in Hamish Brunton’s building and we thank him for his donation of dope, thinners and base coat to the project.

Most difficult of all has been finding someone with the knowledge and skills to work with this old style fabric. Fortunately we were able to find John Rowe who had an aviation business and workshop in Narromine in the 1980’s and 90’s. He has been a fabulous teacher, mentor and worker in helping us finish off this last stage of the project. Cold weather is the enemy of doping fabric to tighten and strengthen it. When we started covering the wings, the temperature got colder by the hour and by the day. John was literally tearing his hair out with frustration. However we managed to gather together enough banks of heat lamps and the days gradually got warmer. Our thanks especially go to John for his time and effort in helping us complete the job.

As stated earlier, the Salmson engine was missing from the Corben that Tony purchased at the clearing sale in 1965. We decided to try and find a replacement motor. We searched across the world but were initially not successful. However the Narromine Aviation Museum curator, Michael Nelmes found a website in the USA called “Barnstormers USA” and we placed a wanted ad on that website. Within a week we had a reply from a Mr Forrest Lovley in Jordan, Minnesota, USA to say that he had a French Salmson AD 9 aircraft engine he was willing to sell to our Museum.

We had assistance from Gary and Glynn Spicer in picking up our Salmson from Mr Lovley in the USA and airfreighting it to Australia. Not only did they arrange and pay to transport our engine to Brisbane, but they even had it delivered right to our door here at the aerodrome. And all of this for almost no cost to our Museum except for import/export charges.

Lionel Simpson has helped the project by building the necessary engine mounting frame and helping us fit the motor into the plane. He also persisted with getting the engine running and has put in many days to do so. He had in fact to manufacture some parts. We sincerely thank Lionel for his contribution with this task.

Billy Miller from Victoria has made the propeller and has done a magnificent job with it. Bill is one of those wonderful older men who love what they do and treat every propeller they make as if it were being made as a gift to a King or Queen. We thank him for his efforts and attention to detail.

There has been over 3,000 man hours of very dedicated work by members of the Narromine Mens’ Shed. At one stage or another almost every member has been called on to assist with cleaning, scraping, sanding or simply holding things. We would like to sincerely thank every one of them. However a small band of very dedicated people need to be especially recognized. Les Farr, Ken Makepeace, John Edmunds and Ted Davies have been there every step of the way. Without these magnificent and dedicated volunteer workers the project would not have been able to be completed. Our heartfelt thanks do not quite seem enough for their great determination to see the job through. Well done boys!

Of interest Corben Super Aces are still being homebuilt today. According to the Corben Company, there were 9 Super Aces built in the 1930’s, however we are advised that Jack Coomber’s is the only surviving example from that era left in the world.

Finally to the Coomber and Foran families, we thank you for being responsible for the building of the Corben and for allowing the Narromine Aviation Museum to have this wonderful example of the earlier days of aviation in the Narromine area. Our Museum visitors have already marveled at the inspiration and dedication of a local mechanic Jack Coomber to build the Corben Super Ace just on 74 years ago.