Chris Bucholtz Posted April 4 Report Posted April 4 In 2022, I met Lewis "Pat" Patteson at the Spirit of '45 event in San Jose - at the time, a spry 102-year old. He kidded us that we didn't have the best plane of World War II on the table, the Lockheed Vega PV-1 Ventura. I asked how he came about that opinion, and he said he flew them. I'd met a guy who flew PV-1s from Attu in the Aleutians to the Kuriles in Japan, and Pat said, "I did that, too!" That evening I went home and hit my PV-1 references and found multiple references to Pat. He flew two dozen 1400-mile trips to Shimushu and Paramushiro in the Kuriles, including flying the crucial photo mission to survey Paramushiro's air bases. Pat and I got to be friendly and he shared his stories, gave me a mess of photos, and even gave me two VPB-135 patched (have to get a Navy G-1 to sew one on!). 1
ghodges Posted April 4 Report Posted April 4 (edited) Great looking legacy build Chris! Is that a squadron marking or personal artwork on the fuselage behind the star? Gil Edited April 9 by ghodges
BWScholten Posted April 4 Report Posted April 4 Nice build. Are you gifting him the model? How is the fit? assembly?
Mark Deliduka Posted April 6 Report Posted April 6 Spectacular model Chris. I too am good friends with a 102 year old veteran a B-17 tail gunner named Bishop Rene Henry Gracida. It's always a thrill hearing their stories. I now have to look into getting a PV-1 Ventura to build. It's one bird I don't have in my collection.
Chris Bucholtz Posted April 11 Author Report Posted April 11 On 4/4/2026 at 3:15 PM, BWScholten said: Nice build. Are you gifting him the model? How is the fit? assembly? Pat passed away in 2024, unfortunately. He already had a model PV-1 built by Boris Ilchenko; Boris helped with this build. I have it documented on my blog: https://obscureco.wordpress.com/category/pv-1-ventura/
Chris Bucholtz Posted April 11 Author Report Posted April 11 On 4/4/2026 at 9:32 AM, ghodges said: Great looking legacy build Chris! Is that a squadron marking or personal artwork on the fuselage behind the star? Gil That's art applied at the factory. PV-1s were built at the Vega plant at El Segundo, and artists from Disney and Warner Brothers would come by and apply cartoons to the airframes during construction. Some featured well-known characters, others were one-off originals. This one features a palm tree and of course, the plane was set to the Aleutians. There are other cases with snowy scenes based in the Marshalls. 🙂 Here's the art Boris Ilchenko worked up, plus a shot of the plane with an unknown crew (not the Patteson crew). 2
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