As 'woodworking' went, the poor Airway was in a world of hurt...

        This photo was taken from the original auction ad for this machine. I saw the peeling paint
    and the discolored playing field in this photo, and I knew that the lockdown bar was missing,
    but what I didn't know was that the backbox back door was also missing. Also, what I didn't
    see was the wood damage -  the top of the backbox was warped so much it had pulled away
    from the backbox sides and was curled up like a potato chip, and the machine actually wiggled
    when you touched it because the original legs were actually all different lengths from moisture
    and termite damage. Also, a previous owner had cut a large hole in the right side of the
    machine to mount a control board for an added home made payout mechanism and a main
    power switch. The brown square object under the Airway's front was actually a homemade
    wooden payout cup which was bolted to the bottom floor of the machine. Luckily, the machine
    seemed electrically complete, with no missing or broken parts and no burned solenoids.

        Would I have purchased this machine in the first place if I had known it was in this bad of a
    condition? Probably - I wanted it bad enough. I always wanted an Airway of 1937, and now I
    had one. I also always wanted a good challenge, and I now had one of those too. However,
    the look on my wife's face when she saw me put it in the back of the van at the seller's place
    said it all.

                       These lower photos are all taken when I finally got the Airway home...
        
The photo on the left is of the bottom of the original legs. Thanks to a fellow member of the
Prewar Pinball Group, (Thank you Stan!), I was able to purchase a set of reproduction legs for my Airway so I at least could work on
it. Here is a photo of the left side of the Airway on its new 'repro' legs - notice that this side was never painted, like the right side in the photo immediately above.