The Birds are out and about.

[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!