DC-7 N836D grounded?

Has anyone heard or seen any new developments with regards to Historical Flight Foundation’s DC-7B. Guessing she is still parked in Charlotte NC?

As has been said, its still in Charlotte… It needs an engine…

I spoke to Carlos Gomez, who was the main man driving the restoration work, last week whilst I was at Opa Locka. Essentially, he is too busy with other projects (his own DC-4 and DC-6 aircraft being placed on oil dispersion contracts in Florida and California, and the setting up of Great Southern Airways to operate up to five ex-USN Convair 340s/C-131s as freighters in the Caribbean) to be able to do much about the DC-7 even if all the other challenges weren’t there.

They need to raise money to acquire a flight-worthy engine for N836D – as I understand it, the four engines that came off DC-7 N381AA (which was also looked after and owned by Carlos – the one in American Airlines colours which is now being converted into a diner in New Smyrna Beach) were sold to the Swiss for use on their Super Constellation HB-RSC, and were shipped to Anderson Airmotive for overhaul / zero timed as and when needed… Whilst DC-7 N381AA will have engines hung on it when it opens as a diner, those would need overhaulling too and therefore weren’t much use for N836D.

I was also told that the flights they conducted with N836D didn’t really make enough money to cover the costs of keeping the aeroplane in flying condition – they made more money from charging folks $5 for walk throughs at air shows than they did from flight operations.

Overall then as far as I can tell the future for N836D isn’t that bright for N836Db – no time to work on it, not enough money to get a replacement engine, and a general feeling that the viability of the operation is not there long-term anyway… However, I sincerely hope that if the idea of flying of the aeroplane regularly in the future has evaporated, it’ll be looked after and placed in a museum that will take care of it on the ground in the longer term.

Oh yes Keith, I remember now, it was YOU! 😀

Newforest you missed out the vital link 😀

Yes very sad news indeed, last I heard it was still at Charlotte needing something like $100.000 for a new engine !!

Keith 😉

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=109149

Whatever the poster on proboard thought he saw at Opa Locka in Nov 2011, it wasn’t N836D, which is still grounded in Charlotte over a year later sadly.

I do hope they manage to get it back up and running again, it made a magnificent sight (and sound) blasting out of Oshkosh a couple of years back.

Hi Schwartz Wald The “proboard” reference was the third one in your initial post.

an other one at smyrna beach (fl) in january. futur restaurant
yves

Proboard for what? :confused: Another new one for me today!

Anyway, great news that it has returned to base, hopefully someone will have the details or maybe have to wait for Propliner. 😉

New Forest, if you look on the proboard, it’s back in Opa Locka so perhaps all is not lost.