Carvair – Alive & well

Correct – N898AT is c/n 20, originally converted for Ansett-ANA as VH-INK. It has had a number of US identities and also one actual and one abortive New Zealand registration. Current owner is Brooks Fuel of Alaska.

Majestic recent pic of a Carvair

http://www2.airliners.net/open.file/1085792/M/

J man

Majestic recent picture of THE Carvair, superb! 🙂 Looks as if this was one Carvair that was never U.K. registered? :confused:

Majestic recent pic of a Carvair

http://www2.airliners.net/open.file/1085792/M/

J man

DC-4 cockpit

Just found this by googling:

http://www.postcardpost.com/cw.htm

Seeing the cockpit shot made me think (at this time of night?) was the Carvair cockpit completely new? How much of the original DC-4 was retained?

Roger Smith.

Looks a little sad 🙁

Hereby a few shots of Brooks’ Fairbanks,AK based N898AT

All photos from April 2004.

Carvair

Gentlemen,
I am pleased to see this new interest in the Carvair. I have a very large data base on the type which I have compiled over the last 40 years. I am seeking factory photos and interior cabin shots. If anyone is aware of what happend to the ATEL files or has personal photos I would appreciate any contacts.
The Carvair is truly a unique aircraft which has demonstrated the quality of both American and British engineering.

I have reviewed the many forum comments with interest. I have been on board seven of the 21 ships. I remembered them from my USAF days in England. I was around two different pair of them in Hawaii and later in Georgia. Everyone I have discussed the Carvair with has spoke of them with affection and immediately began telling of their first experience.

Digital, pah! Wash your mouth out Albert. Never!

Yes, like you, I am a dyed-in-the-wool slide shooter but times are a changing! First the Kodak processing lab. in Hemel Hempstead closes and all films have now got to be sent to Switzerland for processing! Guess what, that lab. closes in September and all Kodachrome will be processed in the USA. How much longer will you continue to buy these films and post them to the States? I think they’re trying to tell us something? 🙁

It’s photography, Jim (read as Steve), but not as we know it!

I’m not a great fan of the ‘everything new must be better’ philosophy, and certainly early digital photography was pretty poor at all stages, but as with all things high-tech now, it is getting better and better. My daughter and her partner having invested in a fair quality camera and a well-researched printer lately, together with some really good software, has started knocking out prints that are almost breathtaking in their sharpness, detail and coplour rendition. And as I see more and more press and other professional photographers taking up digital cameras as their main ‘weapon’, it is clear that there lies the future. And for those of us with old negative and slide collections, the latest film scanners seem able to actually improve the general quality of negs and slides – they do a good job at ‘removing’ scratches, pinholes and dust/hair shadows that were always the bane of b&w printing. And once scanned, you can fiddle with contrast and brightness, etc. before finally printing off. Just a different, and altogether quicker, less painfull and chemical-free way of doing what we used to achieve in the darkroom.

I do almost no aviation photography these days, but if I was to take it up again I would definitely give serious consideration to embracing digital. I am certainly scanning my historical negs and slides with the intention of storing the images on cd or a memory stick and producing all future prints from my pc via an inkjet.

Digital, pah! Wash your mouth out Albert. Never!

We’ve had the conversation before John! I switched from b/w to slides in 1966 and gave up b/w then. Now trying to convince myself that after 40 years of shooting slides, digital is the way to go, but I’ve got mixed feelings.
Oh boy, a CD with your slides scanned on them would sell like a bomb! I am also scanning my slides, but it’s a daunting and tedious task! 🙁

Someone remembers me! Cor! Well, b&w was very much the thing then – much cheaper than colour, you could do all your own processing and printing and almost no magazines published colour shots anyway! There were times when I shot something in the day, processed and printed in the evening and caught the midnight collection from Southend’s main Post Office and the picture would be on the ‘Aeroplane’ or ‘Flight’ editorial desk by 9.30 the next day (we had a good and reliable postal service then, of course!). But if I’d known then what I know now….

Actually, as I often had two cameras on the go, I did shoot some colour, slides of course, and almost none have ever been published. I am in the throes of scanning and digitising my negative and slide collection, so in the fullness of time… It may take several months (even years), but I will get there. And there are some Carvairs, including the odd ‘action shot’ amongst the slides.

Ah, a famous ‘RJG action shot’. Delighted to see any of these in Air Pictorial during the ’60s….now if only it was in colour!! :rolleyes:

Blimey! ‘The Black Sheds’!!! Do I remember them well! Actually, they were fairly standard pre-war RAF type hangars (don’t ask me the pattern number). The one used by ATEL was engulfed by the large complex that is still there to this day and which eventually more than doubled the floor space. As Old Fart says, we built the noses at Southend and they were moved to Stansted by road on a special trailer – invariably this journey took place on a Sunday morning (years before any thought of Sunday Trading, so the roads were always quiet) and with a police escort.

The prototype G-ANYB was converted at Southend, as also was the eleventh, G-APNH (actually the twelfth to fly, as its conversion was a distinctly unhurried affair – commenced Feb 1963, first flight 4 Jan 1965) and the twenty-first and last, Ansett’s VH-INM. The Stansted ‘production line’ had closed by the time this one was ordered and we had to bring on of the three unused noses there back to Southend for the job.

I have masses of photos of Carvairs which I shot around Southend during the 1960s and 70s. Here’s a taster – G-APNH lifting out of Southend on 4 Aug 1966 in the then still quite new BUA/BAF two-tone livery. Note that the quaint symbol following the BUA legend is pointing rearwards instead of forwards – ‘NH was the only Carvair so mis-painted.

The first Carvair was constructed at Southend and was rolled out of what were known as “The Black Sheds” on 13th May 1961, it was still in a semi complete state, with its engines, outer wings, flying controls and a few other parts still to be fitted. Once these were fitted the aircraft had been scheduled to preform its first flight on 20th June 1961 however a delay in the paperwork meant the aircraft could only taxi, then came the first flight on 21st June 1961.

Once certification was gained prodution was shifted to Stansted however ALL the bulbous nose sections were built at Southend and then taken by road to be fitted once this was done the aircraft was flown the short distance to Southend for final fitting out.

Basically if you have £100,000 spare, you can have it delivered to the UK, complete with Spares and a Ferry Crew, and its 100% airworthy.

Where are Air Atlantique when you need them??? Cummon guys – this babe can earn you money and is a snip at this price?? :rolleyes:

David, when you say “bring one home”, were Carvairs a British made conversion? I always assumed it was a US design. Mind you it looks British, the conversion ruins the look of the sleek DC-4

Dave,

British. Freddie Laker’s – ‘Aviation Traders’.

Mark

When I was a kid there were two Carvairs mothballed at the nearby Hamilton Airport, Rukuhia, for some years. They’d been brought into NZ by a poor chap who thought he could start an airline but found the government red tape killed the idea. They used to sit net to the Pacific Aerospace hangars. They were ZK-NWA and ZK-NWB I believe, the NW standing for the airline’s name of Nation Wide,

I believe they eventually were sold and may have gone to Hawaii.

David, when you say “bring one home”, were Carvairs a British made conversion? I always assumed it was a US design. Mind you it looks British, the conversion ruins the look of the sleek DC-4

Glad you liked the video of 9J-PAA – just incase anyone is feeling “flush” at the moment, 9J-PAA is still for sale and has been drastically reduced!

Basically if you have £100,000 spare, you can have it delivered to the UK, complete with Spares and a Ferry Crew, and its 100% airworthy.

Wether of course it can be flown once here, is another matter. 🙂