This particular example of the Constellation family was built by Lockheed at Burbank in 1955 as an RC-121D with an under-fuselage radome and so lacked the distinctive fuselage-top radome of some versions of the Warning Star. 548 spent most of its service life based out of McClellan AFB near Sacramento in California, with detachments to Tainan AB, Taiwan, Kuanju AB, South Korea and Keflavik in Iceland, before being transferred to the Air Force Reserve (AFRES) at Homestead AFB in Florida in 1976.
Over the course of its service life the Warning Star was upgraded to EC-121D and later EC-121T specification. It was one of the last Warning Stars to be retired from USAF service and was placed in storage in the 'Boneyard' at Davis-Monthan AFB in Arizona in 1978.
After being struck off charge in 1981 it moved to the nearby Pima County Air Museum where it remained on display until being disposed of by the museum in 1994. The collection already had several examples of the Constellation family on display, including another EC-121, and so it became surplus to their requirements.
Sold to Wayne Jones' Global Aeronautical Foundation, it was registered as N538GF and flown out to Camarillo Airport to the west of Los Angeles in 1995. It appeared at a few West Coast air shows until being grounded by the FAA due to outer wing corrosion concerns in 2000.
Since then, the aircraft has been languishing at Camarillo, where, for a number of years, it had company on the ramp in the shape of C-121C N73544, which departed in 2004 and is now based in Switzerland.
Wayne Jones passed away in 2002, and the Warning Star was subsequently acquired by Yanks in 2005. Since then, it has been worked on on an intermittent basis, including restoration work carried out by Edwards Brothers Aviation from the UK in early-2006. However, the FAA was still not prepared to approve the aircraft for flight until further work was carried out.
With the sign-off from the FAA for a one-time ferry flight being finally granted late in 2011, a crew from Yanks, comprising experienced Constellation pilot Al Malecha (who flew Vern Raeburn's MATS Connie on its European tour in 1998) as captain, co-pilot Pat Farrell, flight engineer Geoffrey Behrens and flight mechanic Timothy Coons, as well as Yanks' project lead Frank Wright and some of the engineers who prepared the aircraft for flight, made the 100-mile flight from Camarillo to Chino, where the aircraft will now be placed on static display outside the Yanks facility. This was the first flight of a Constellation in the US since the Kansas City-based Airline History Museum's example blew an engine in summer 2005. After departing Camarillo around noon, the crew made a couple of orbits overhead to check that systems were functioning correctly, then set course for Chino where a single flypast was made before coming in for what will probably be the aircraft's final landing, with the distinctive sound of 4 Wright R-3350s reverberating as it made its approach.
After taxying in and shutting down in front of the Yanks facility at Chino, the crew were greeted by the waiting crowd, which included a number of former Constellation crew members, both military and airline. The number of people turning out to watch the arrival bears testament to the affection still retained for this most elegant of piston-engined transport aircraft, almost 70 years after the type's first flight.
The aircraft was then opened up for inspection, allowing visitors to see the full radar interior still preserved, including the four operators' stations, the radar technician's position and the flight crew stations.
Although it is not planned to fly the Warning Star again, this is one more example that has escaped the scrapper and been preserved for future generations to see this example of state-of-the-art 1950s early-warning radar technology; a fine addition to Yanks' extensive collection of US types.
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