Last flight of N34, a DC-3 Flight Inspection aircraft. It is leaving its home at the FAA Aeronautical Center at Will Rogers Airport in Oklahoma City on its way to a museum in Amarillo. It's being flown by Mike Ahern and Dean Alexander.
Completed in 1945 near the end of World War II, the Navy used the Douglas DC-3, N34 at various worldwide locations as a transport airplane. Among the assignments were London, Rome, Naples, Paris, Algiers, Frankfort, Brussels, Oslo, Stockholm, Dublin, Cairo, Kuwait and Baghdad. Later converted to a R4D-6, it was assigned to the U.S. Navy Utility Transport Squadron Four (VRU-Four) from February 26, 1947 until March 1949 when it was detached from the squadron and returned to the U.S. On April 8, 1947, N34 nosed over in the mud while being taxied out of the only parking area available in London, and both engines had to be changed. While not officially assigned to the Berlin Airlift (1948-1949), it is highly probable that N34 flew into Berlin in support of Operation VITTLES, as most airplanes in the area during that time were pressed into support of the airlift operation. Sometime prior to 1956 the airplane was put into storage by the Navy.
The Navy loaned the airplane, along with four other DC-3s, to the Civil Aviation Administration (CAA), later the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The initial FAA assignment as a flight inspection airplane was to the Southwest Region in Fort Worth, Texas, and later to various other FAA regions. This airplane was operational and photographed with its first CAA livery paint scheme on the ramp at Oakland in August 1958. (text from National Park Service web site: nps.gov/NR/travel/aviation/)
26 сен 2024
