RE: DC4

We wish we had a CAA like you have at the other side of the Channel. Ours is the most difficult one in Europe. If you want to have your historic aircraft grounded, put a PH reg on it. Flying under eg G or N reg isn’t an option too. Look what went wrong with the A-26. It had no Dutch historical relevance 9another “must” for the Dutch CAA, so it was banned from flying and is now sold to the States.

RE: DC4

If you have a million Dollars to spare, it is most probably yours. I don’t know if Air Atl. wants to have it. Given the fact that they have (good) contacts with the DDA must mean that if they wanted it, they had the time from November 2000 till today, to react or pay. They didn’t. One problem is buying the machine, the other one to get it registrated as “commercial airliner” again. As it is now PH registrated, and not allowed to fly passengers, it will be difficult to get it registrated as so, somewhere abroad. Most irritating is that although the DDA is not allowed to fly passengers in their DC-4, the South Africans (DC-4), Lufthansa (JU-52) and Red Bull (DC-6) will not receive any problems if they want to fly passengers from Amsterdam. They have no Netherlands registration, so the Dutch CAA don’t give a s..t. The CAA is ruled by the politics. As politicians are opertunistic people (always first to get free flights in eg the DC-3’s or Dc-4, they were the first to cry havoc after the DC-3 crash). Aviation is a loaden subject in Holland. As it is economicly “not well done” to kill off the (money earning) big aviation, the politicians found an easy target in the Dutch historic aviation branche. According to them, every aircraft older than 40 years is a potentially safety hazard. I think that they are waiting for one more accident, to ground everything historic flying here in Holland.

I don’t know why Air Atl. is selling its Dc-3 fleet, they are getting too old I think. At least they give them to (flying) museums I understood.

RE: KLM NEW LIVERY

I received the information from Holland that the drawings are “one of a multiple design studies”. It is not official, so forget about a KLM in this livery for the moment, if ever. Much more of these drawings , including the KLM ones, can be found on the following website:

http://www.webstudio.nl/liladesign

There are many colourfull liveries here (Air Holland and South African Air. are very colourfull, the others I haven’t seen yet) but they are drawings only, and probably will never be seen like this on an airliner. I hope I am wrong in this, as they are very beautifull.

RE: Skyshark

There is/was a Skyshark preserved at Chino in California. Last time I saw it there, complete but in an all silver livery, was around 1994 or so. It must be the sole survivor.

RE: WWII aircraft

The photo was taken during the 1991 airshow at Geneseo in Ny state. Every year they gathered as much 2- and 4 engined WW2 bombers as possible. Only negative part was (always) that the persons behind the microphones couldn’t keep their mouths shut during the flypasts, so all video recording was (always) spoiled by their (usual stupid and (not funny at all)) ‘jokes’. Apart from that, the show was one of the best ones to make photographs, nothing further away than 200 mm, clean background and a “dirt” runway. Tmeless photography!. Unfortunatly, the show isn’t there any more.