From drop tank to fighter jet

MOSES LAKE — It’s hard to miss the replica of the German ME-262 fighter jet perched on a pole in front of T and M Surplus.

Driver crane their necks as the pass by 1102 W. Broadway Ave. in Moses Lake.

The Messerschmitt ME-262 was the first jet fighter. It was produced by Germany near the end of World War II. Mike Davis, the surplus store’s owner, made the plane out of a drop tank he found near Skyline auto.

“It’d been up there for years,” he said. “When we opened up our store originally at Skyline auto. One afternoon (and I) had an urging and put it together.”

 Davis picked the plane based on the shape of the drop tank, he said. He decided it would fit the theme of his military surplus store.

“It also acts as a wind vane,” Davis said, tapping the plane with a shovel handle. The plane spun on the pole. “It’ll go back to the wind direction.”

It took him two days to put the plane together. He had to take the plane down for about two-and-a-half years after the bottom rusted. He returned it to the pole last week.

“So many people come by and say, ‘Where’s the plane? Where’s the plane?’” he said. “Had a guy who wasn’t here for two years come in and say, ‘Oh the plane’s back.’”

Davis decided to put the plane back up because he found the time to do it.

“Years ago, back in World War II, sporting goods, surplus (stores) would take a fighter plane and put it on their roof,” he said. “Then it became valuable. I was thinking that’s a good idea, I’ll put one on a pole.”

A plate describing the jet sits on the pole underneath the model. He put it there for people who stop to look.

“We’ve had people from all over the world, Japanese, Germans, that have stopped by to look at it,” he said. “One guy stopped by and his dad built these fighters during World War II.”

The last time the plane was up, he said about one or two people a day would stop by to look.

“Little kids would want to know if they could ride in it, which is nothing unusual,” he said. “It sat out back there upside down for about two years.”

The wings and tail of the jet are made out of plywood, he said. The engines were air filters he scavenged at Skyline auto. The canopy is made out of fiberglass.

“It’s not flyable,” he said. “There’s no lift. If there was lift, it would probably fly off the pole.”

On the ground near the plane, sits a hollowed-out bomb case turned into a planter. Two other planters, which were made out of bomb storage boxes, sit on the property. He said he doesn’t plan his projects.

“When everything comes out and I got time and when I get thinking right to do it, I do it,” Davis said. 

Inside of his store, Davis has other items fashioned out of military surplus. Including a cane and a walking stick made out of .50 caliber casings and pens made out of other bullets. He makes the pens “very carefully.”

“We silver solder these pieces together,” he said. “Then put the pens in them. Then basically ship them all over … We got a guy in Chicago that buys quite a few of them every year.”

He said the same inspiration, which led him to build the airplane, leads him to build these other items.

“Just let your imagination come up with something,” he said. “And if it’s different enough somebody will have to have it.”