The Birds are out and about.

[CINDERS]

Did not happen to notice a small black & white dog with flying helmet/googles and a scarf perched on a doghouse chasing it did you Henry!

[browningautorifle]

I looked up and there was the red Fokker Dr1.

Something you don't see every day. I recall being out back of my grade school when I was a kid and hearing a piston engine...looking up seeing a Mk9 Spitfire doing a slow roll above me. No one else noticed.

[muffett.2008]

Another rebuild took to the air this afternoon, not sure what it was, unpainted but Boomerang/Wirraway/Harvard look about it........will find out later.

[Peter Laidler]

Nice to see a Dakota flying over my part of Oxfordshire. Went it to get the trusty old No5 binos out. It was still there flying across like the grand old lady she is

[Paul S.]

The first aircraft I ever flew in was a Dakota Airliner. The first multi-engine aircraft I ever flew was a military Dakota when I was in the Air Scouts way back when. They gave each of us a 10 to 15 minute turn at the controls (right seat).

They are lovely to fly so said that 15 year old.

[CINDERS]

As a young'un I got to see the Dak up close & personal but must say it was a rather steep walk to the cockpit whilst she was sat on the tarmac as my brother used to take me up to RAAF Base Pearce when he was on duty crew on week ends was pretty cool to be able to walk around the base looking in the hangers, beside my brother I got to sit in Vampires, tour a C-130A or E do not know and see a Caribou close up boy they are a big bird.

Here is a snippet about the Caribou few know about;

"During a brief civil war in the former Portugese colony of East Timor in 1975, a Caribou (A4-140) from August to October, and later (A4-199) were deployed to support Red Cross relief operations by ferrying supplies around the country. During that deployment, armed East Timorese soldiers forced the crew of A4-140 at gun point to take off with 54 people on board and fly themselves and other refugees to Australia, A4-140 has the dubious distinction of being the only RAAF aircraft ever hijacked."

Get a book called "Fate Is The Hunter" By Ernest K Gann to find out what a D-3 is like on the ground and to land, in his opinion they are a right handful in any sort of cross wind his training on them was quite hilarious at times his flying career with it is full of hair raising do's.
He was the only pilot to beat the unporting issue on the DC-4 by sheer ignorance which helped solve the riddle of why they were suddenly crashing killing all on board.

Fate is the Hunter, Ernest K. Gann’s classic memoir of an earlier era of flying, is a good reminder of the inherent dangers of aviation, which most casual airline passengers today have largely forgotten. One memorable passage near the end of the book recounts one of Gann’s DC-4 flights, when he noticed, but then dismissed from his mind, an insistent vibration, only to learn later that he had narrowly avoided a crash due to aerodynamic unporting, an exceedingly rare problem that under certain circumstances would have put his airplane into a virtually unrecoverable dive.

[mrclark303]

Just love the good old Dak. I flew in one back in 1999, Air Atlantque, based at Coventry Airport, pure charisma, an unforgettable flight.

Afterwards a tour through the workshop where the Company DC3,4,6 and Lockheed Electra's were being worked on. Absolutely heaven for anyone into classic props.

Then came 9,11 and all such pleasure flights were banned because they couldn't be brought up to the required security standard.

Wonderful memories though.

[CINDERS]

What was that Bomber the USA had the B-36 that had 6 turning and 4 burning now that was a classic I would love to get to see the Spruce Goose in the US and hopefully see some of the stuff over there and if ever I get to see where my dad lived in England as a young lad before he came alone to Australia at the ripe old age of 16.
I would go to Bovington to see & hopefully watch Tiger 131 rolling around and the 7 tonne projie from Gustav.

But yes Clarky the golden era of plane travel I agree with you there.
I had a picture taken by my s/inlaw when she toured the US of the Memphis Belle but its lost somewhere in the house GGRRRR!

[Peter Laidler]

Saw the same grand old lady returning yesterday, the lovely old Dakota. And wondered........... If you owned one, are they easy to maintain? Are spare parts readily available? Literature for maintenance, manuals etc etc?

[jmoore]

Saw the same grand old lady returning yesterday, the lovely old Dakota. And wondered........... If you owned one, are they easy to maintain? Are spare parts readily available? Literature for maintenance, manuals etc etc?

We had a fleet of four or five active cargo dog C47/DC3s locally up through the early 2000s. Got to fly one a bit on a late night car bumper run to St. Louis from Americus. Photos have yet to be digitized, but got quite a few, except on the trip back when I fell asleep in the cargo area floor.
The operation moved to a different airport, and I lost track of them.


Spares, manuals, etc. all available. I believe the DC3 was the first airframe which the FAA declared to have unlimited airworthiness time. (Fatigue life-wise.)


BTW, the Kittyhawk belonging to Judy Pay's mob had it's fuselage constructed 99% new in Griffin GA in the late '90s by Tom Wilson and his gang of pirates, of which I was one. Arrrgh!