04/30/2008. Remarks by Johan Visschedijk: "This aircraft was built in 1944 as a L-5E under the USAAF s/n 44-18071, but was accepted by the USN at the plant for the USMC and designated as OY-1 it was given the BuNo. 03977.

Struck off charge it came on the US civil registry as N66529, registered to George K. Matley of Stockton, California on October 30, 1953. By 1957 it had been exported to Canada and was used for aerial hyper-stereoscopic photography surveys by the brothers Casey and Ronny Wells of Wells Aero Pictures Limited at Sardis, British Columbia. The aircraft was registered CF-IIM and was operated from nearby Chilliwack Airport. Subsequently it was registered to the following owners in British Columbia:

Malcolm Smith, Chilliwack, till May 27, 1982
Quentin Washtock, Tsawwassen, August 3, 1982 to January 22, 1991
G. & J-L. Boucher, Vancouver, January 22, 1991 to May 31, 1995
Flightline Aviation, Sidney, January 28, 2000 to October 20, 2000
Douglas Moore, Port Alberni, October 20, 2000 to April 5, 2002."

In May 2002 it was registered in the USA as N8071, and the present owner, Paul Draper states: "There was an FAA paperwork mistake that had her listed as N3977 and N39777 (N3977 was assigned to my aircraft, but the FAA then realized that it was already on a hot air balloon). I often see it quoted as N39777, but I don't know why, I don't have any paperwork proving that it was ever registered as that. We still aren't positive on the c/n, but we know it isn't 3977 as this was an FAA mix-up due to the original bill of sale from the Navy listing its serial number.

It is still alive and well and patrolling the skies over Michigan for fun, in a colour scheme recreating how it looked back in 1945 when serving with the USMC."