2009 Articles

Historical Flight Foundation DC-7B Corrosion Corner used to be the place at Miami International Airport (MIA) to see the old round engined aircraft still operating mostly to the Caribbean, until the city had a clear-out to develop the airport. Opa-locka Airport has taken over that mantle since and Paul Filmer paid a visit to Historical Flight Foundation's facilities there.

Here you can find Convair, Douglas and even Russian prop aircraft either plying their trade, or waiting for that next big contract.

One of the more active operators in this area is Florida Air Transport (FAT) who operate DC-7, DC-6 and DC-4 aircraft on ad-hoc charter airfreight work.

DC-7B N836D had been parked up at Holman Field in Minneapolis for 32 years, where owner Joe Kocour would occasionally run the engines and perform maintenance, hoping one day to see this former Eastern Airlines (EAL) aircraft take to the air again. Amazingly this airframe had only seen around ten years of service – five with EAL and then a travel club.

This aircraft attracted the attention of well known propliner aficionado Carlos Gomez, owner of FAT, along with Marc Wolff who wanted to operate a DC-7 in passenger configuration after the FAA recognised the need to allow living history flights. These flights must take-off and land within 50 miles of the same airport or take-off and land at the same airport.

N836D is the only surviving DC-7 still in its original passenger configuration, which is precisely why it was targeted by the newly formed Legendary Airlines.

After only four months and two engine changes the aircraft was made airworthy and ferried first to Atlanta on 7th August 2004 to be greeted by eager Eastern employees. After an overnight stay she then flew onward to the new home of Opa-locka, Florida.

Since then the aircraft has been extensively rebuilt, with many new metal skin panels, new outer wings, 2x2 seating donated from a DC-9 and of course the striking original EAL livery.

Currently the aircraft is awaiting paperwork approval from the FAA and, when this is complete, it will be operated by the Historical Flight Foundation who are a tax exempt organisation as required by the FAA. FAT crews will then be contracted to fly the aircraft.

The intent is to offer passenger flights and tours much like Air Atlantique used to in the UK with their DC-3s, until the European regulations forced them to cease these operations.

More information can be found at the Historical Flight Foundation site and GAR wishes them all the success they deserve. GAR wants to interact with its readers so if you have a question for the author or a comment to make on this feature, please click on the button below. The best comments will appear right here on GAR.