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Aircraft:
Douglas C-54E Skymaster
- Reg: N62297 photos
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Serial #:
27328
- Airline: Aero Union
- Photo Date: Jun 02, 2002
- Uploaded: Feb 09, 2007
- Cedar City Municipal Airport - KCDC, USA - Utah
"Ready To Roll!" A thumbs up from the pilot shows that this grand old lady is ready to for another mission. Together with a Hawkins and Powers P-2 and a C-130, they were fighting a fire in the hills about twenty miles out of Carson City. The aircraft was delivered to the USAAF in April 1945 as 44-9102 and was immediately transferred to the USN, taking up the serial 90404 for the remainder of her military career, which lasted for twenty five years until she flew into Davis Monthan in April 1970 to be WFU and stored. After four years sitting in the hot Arizona sun, she was purchased by Aero Union and converted to her new role as a tanker, a job which she performed admirably for thirty years until the demise of the piston engined tanker fleet in North American saw her being placed in storage. Thankfully a new lease of life for this old campaigner began at the end of 2005 when she was purchased by Buffalo Airways, based at Yellowknife . Now over sixty years old, and re-registered C-GBAJ, lets hope that she will continue to fight fires in the far flung outposts of Canada for many years to come......good luck old girl! (N.B. This image was scanned from a slide so perhaps is not as sharp as I would have liked - hope you like it anyway).
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Photographer
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"Ready To Roll!" A thumbs up from the pilot shows that this grand old lady is ready to for another mission. Together with a Hawkins and Powers P-2 and a C-130, they were fighting a fire in the hills about twenty miles out of Carson City. The aircraft was delivered to the USAAF in April 1945 as 44-9102 and was immediately transferred to the USN, taking up the serial 90404 for the remainder of her military career, which lasted for twenty five years until she flew into Davis Monthan in April 1970 to be WFU and stored. After four years sitting in the hot Arizona sun, she was purchased by Aero Union and converted to her new role as a tanker, a job which she performed admirably for thirty years until the demise of the piston engined tanker fleet in North American saw her being placed in storage. Thankfully a new lease of life for this old campaigner began at the end of 2005 when she was purchased by Buffalo Airways, based at Yellowknife . Now over sixty years old, and re-registered C-GBAJ, lets hope that she will continue to fight fires in the far flung outposts of Canada for many years to come......good luck old girl! (N.B. This image was scanned from a slide so perhaps is not as sharp as I would have liked - hope you like it anyway).Camera
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Aircraft
- Reg: N62297 photos
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Aircraft:
Douglas C-54E Skymaster
- Airline: Aero Union
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Serial #:
27328
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Photo Location
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Cedar City Municipal Airport - KCDC
- USA - Utah
Comments
Good of you to include the story of the aircraft...it gives perspective to the many years she has served already. And the scan is fine!
Thanks for sharing. Very interesting history. This "grand old lady" has had a relatively busy sixty years and hopefully many more to come! Great remarks and scan is good!