“I’ve always wanted to drive it back to the farm. This winter I decided it was time,” Schumacher said.

Schumacher received the tractor from his father about 20 years ago, before his father’s death.

For several months he has been refurbishing the tractor, which Schumacher vividly remembers as a 5-year-old watching his father drive through the gates of the Schumacher family’s Century Farm in Carroll County, Iowa, where he grew up with 10 sisters and two brothers.

Schumacher, known as Airplane Joe, who has had an illustrious career in aviation spanning more than six decades, said it was his father, a pilot himself, who inspired he and his brothers, Marty and Jerry, with a love of aviation and tractors.

JOE SCHUMACHER looks over some maps for his planned 625-mile trip to return his father’s 1951 Farmall M Diesel tractor to the family farm near Willey, Iowa. (Marguerite Lanthier/Daily News photo)

Schumacher will make the trip on county roads, averaging 12 miles an hour. The tractor will be pulling a trailer with his motorcycle on back. He has added steps and an extra seat so family members can occasionally ride along.

He plans to be in Wisconsin for three days, then will cross the Mississippi River into Minnesota and continue through Minnesota to Cresco, Iowa, where more family will greet him for the final three- to four-day stage of the trip to Willey.

He hopes to have the tractor home by July 30, which would have been his father’s 103rd birthday. Four generations of family and friends will gather at the cemetery in Willey for a service honoring his parents, Paul and Marie Schumacher. Then the tractor will travel the last 3 miles to the farm, now operated by his brother Marty and his wife, JoAnn.

Schumacher has been a Florence County resident for about 20 years. Over the years, during his aviation career, Schumacher has met and befriended many aviators, both world famous and ordinary, especially during his 16-year role as director of operations for aircraft at the annual Experimental Aircraft Association Air Show in Oshkosh, Wis. He met his wife, Jill, also a pilot, at the EAA, where she continues to work in operations at the airshow. He is now retired but still flies, builds and remodels aircraft and does consulting for airports and aviators.

A SIGN ON the back of the trailer attached to the tractor Joe Schumacher of Florence, Wis. plans to drive 625 miles to the family farm near Willey, Iowa. (Joe Schumacher photo)