BOB HAMMER RECALLS THE DAY ten 18-wheel tractor trailers dumped the pieces of five Messerschmitt Me 262 Stormbird jet fighter reproductions in a hangar near the city of Everett, Washington. The pieces had been trucked in from Texas, where an initial attempt to build the aircraft had ended in lawsuits. “Parts everywhere—parts, parts, parts,” says Hammer, a retired Boeing engineer. “You never saw such a mess.”