Detailing Air Force One

For Jacob Darby, the devil is in the details.

For six years, the Penngrove native has been revamping aircrafts for diverse clientele, which recently included Seattle’s Museum of Flight. Alongside 35 other trained professionals, Darby is working to restore Air Force One, the iconic jetliner that carried presidents for decades - but that was recently decommissioned and will be preserved for exhibition after this year.

Air Force One is one of many prestigious planes that Darby has helped restore, along with Amelia Airhart’s Electra and the Concorde “Alpha Golf.”

When working on such an aircraft, the main concern, Darby said, is the outer layer, whether it be paint or aluminum. The two coatings pose different difficulties.

“The aluminum is by far harder, by tenfold, to deal with. You’re dealing with the elements, the sun, the pressure of your pads. There’s just a lot more factors that come into play to get the results we’re looking for,” he said.

When the plane is covered in paint instead of the reactive metal, the process is far less tedious.

“The first thing you do is test-spots. Once we find out what we want to do with the paint, it’s a pretty hit-the-ground-running process of getting it done.”

When asked if the process is ever simple, he joked that “Eating lunch is the easiest part about it.” Plane repair is no simple process.

Darby had been working for clients around the Bay Area until Renny Doyle, the head of Detailing Success in Southern California, flew him down for an interview to join his elite team tackling some of the world’s best-known planes.

“Jacob came to train with me over two years ago,” said Doyle. “When he came, he was one of the few that was trained within both automotive and aircraft detailing.”

As a trusted team member, Darby was then picked to take part in the Air Force One restoration.

“Jacob’s true attention to detail - along with his high level of professionalism and his talents as a professional detailer - are the primary reasons he was once again chosen,” Doyle said.

Earlier this February, they took on Amelia Airhart’s Electra, the plane which Jacob cites as the oldest and most difficult repair of the more than 100 planes he’s worked on.

Despite the difficulty and laborious nature of aviation repair, the job is also rewarding.

“I think it’s just the connection to the aircrafts,” Darby said. “It makes the world smaller and everything closer. When you’re up above the hills or the clouds, you can see so much farther, which makes the scope of the world so much smaller. When you have that perspective, it’s a bird’s eye view. And I think that’s what makes me drawn to it - the lust to wander.”

(Contact Quinn Pieper at argus@arguscourier.com)