German soldier/gear (picture).

[Harlan (Deceased)]

We actually do have a working jump light, but we just talk through the intercom and the PIC gives sort of a coundown when it's about time for them to get ready. You can hear pretty well with headphones on, but it's so loud inside you have to yell in the ear of the person next to you to talk to them. There's no sound insulation at all in military aircraft from that era. There's just a thin layer of aluminum from the inside out. It always cracks me up when I see an old war movie and jumpers are sitting in C-47's carrying on conversations with other people around them in near a regular voice. I think the second installment of Band of Brothers when the 101st was on their way to drop is the first time I've seen a movie where they got it right.

We have the C-47 fully restored inside, including a NOS static line assembly. C-47's flew in service forever and there's still tons of NOS stuff for them still in original boxes. They were thinking about doing some real static line jumps but found (whatever they call the long strap that pulls the chute open) was a special longer length particular to C-47's so jumpers would clear the big tail wheel before the chute starts to open.

Here's some inside shots - As you know, they used C-47's for about everything imaginable. There's still a lot of NOS equipment so we installed some different things to show how versatile and widely used C-47's were. The navigation table is authentic, and not in photos, but across from it ALL the huge, heavy WWII radios are now installed. - (I wanted to install three mini-guns out the port windows to show the "Spooky" configuration, but got voted down)

There actually is a C-47 on the air show circuit now that has three miniguns and the 'Spooky' or 'Puff the magic Dragon' Vietnam era camo paint scheme.

I took the photos below while they were running the engines up after replacing a mag, and then taxiing. Kids can't fly on CAF aircraft (insurance) but my boy was having a good time sitting in my seat and listening to all the noise and vibrations with the engines angry.