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Lest we forget who is boss

As of July 15th, it is no longer possible for a European to fly in a vintage DC-3. Air Atlantique ran a very successful farewell tour around the UK and its flights were sold out.

Perhaps one continent’s loss is another’s gain and these passenger-worthy classics will find a home across the pond where they can continue to bring the joy of flying in the most marvelous working airplane every built.

Maybe we should start a tradition like that of the Muslims, but instead of bowing towards Brussels at a given hour each day, we could give them the other end to show the full depth of our respect for them.

23 comments to Lest we forget who is boss

  • ChrisM

    “Maybe we should start a tradition like that of the Muslims, ”

    …and fly the DC-3s into EU HQ? I like the sound of that.

  • Kim du Toit

    Sorry; as one who has taken innumerable flights in a DC-3 (aka. “Dakota”), I know the reality.

    The DC-3 is known, not without reason, as the “Vomit Comet”, because any flight in even mild turbulence causes near-suicidal airsickness for passengers seated near the tail.

    It’s gone: good riddance.

  • Crake

    The very first hit on google (for me, possibly on the danish setting), was this page:

    (Link)

    on which flights are sold out through September.

  • Midwesterner

    but instead of bowing towards Brussels at a given hour each day, we could give them the other end to show the full depth of our respect for them.

    Um, Dale? Considering what the EU is trying to do, that may not be the safest form of obeisance. Can’t you find a religion that offers its leaders as a human sacrifice to demonstrate piety?

  • “The DC-3 is known, not without reason, as the ‘Vomit Comet’, because any flight in even mild turbulence causes near-suicidal airsickness for passengers seated near the tail.

    It’s gone: good riddance.”

    That would have been for customers to decide, Kim. You, know: the people who are making their own decisions with their own money — just like you and any real man would — instead of getting herded through arbitrary turnstiles by people with nothing more to say about any of it than that they have the ability to put guns to our heads.

    Get it?

    It’s pretty fucking easy for you to sit there are nod while other peoples’ values are getting burned down.

  • RAB

    My father in law stepped out of one
    on June 6th 1944.

    Yes he was feeling a little sick
    He thought his chute might not open
    or the blokes on the ground might want to kill him.

    Turbulance, like choppy seas for the guys in Landing Craft that day, was not the main issue.

    It was and is a bloody fine aeroplane.
    The Dakota!

  • llamas

    I have taken a few flights in DC3s myself, including several in which I voluntarily stepped out the door in flight, even through both engines appeared to be running fairly well, as well as a couple of round trips on the ‘Draggin’ Wagon’ service of Provincetown-Boston Airways in the late 70s/early 80’s.

    Never was airsick in any one of them.

    Leaving that aside, it seems a shame that an airplane that must have flown billions of miles with what seems like a pretty enviable record for rugged reliability is now summarily banned because of some silly-ass bureaucrat. I am sorry that the opportunity is lost to you. Come to the US, where you can take a ride in a DC3 any day of the week if you know who to ask.

    llater,

    llamas

  • People who are airsick tend to not think very well … enough repetitions and a phobia will develop.

    Having people like me who never get airsick or seasick point and laugh probably doesn’t help either …

  • Even mentioned in Heinlein, Scar Gordon in “Glory Road”

    “I knew it would fly; it was a Gooney Bird, a C-47,mostly patches and God knows how many millions of miles. It would get to Singapore on one engine if asked. I knew my luck was in as soon as I saw that grand old collection of masking tape and glue sitting on the field.”

  • The DC-3 is an epic ‘plane. It is why the likes of me get out of bed of a morning. That something designed 60 years ago is still commercially viable is…

    I dunno. Awesome, perhaps.

  • Try designed 75 years ago, Nick.The DC3 is a direct outgrowth of the DC1

  • Paul

    Vomit? Try being next to the flight deck, and thus the last one out on a C-141 making its third pass/drop on a tiny Panamanian drop zone. 100% humidity, 100 plus temperature, dehydrated, tired from being up for the last 12 hours, 200 pounds of equipment, bladder bursting and muscles cramped from a 5 hour flight from Bragg and a hour or two of low level. The flight deck covered in slippery puke, piss and trash and the want to be fighter pilots pulling a G and putting the jet on it’s wingtip.

    The PBA flight on the DC-3 from Hyannis to Boston, up the coast along all the old sea towns was one of my best flights ever. Just barely faster than the cars on Rt. 3. Like flying in a cloud.

  • Damn you Mike Borgelt – I was about to provide the same quote, and damned if I want to remember how many decades ago I read those words.

  • nick g.

    Let’s show some sensitivity AND common sense here! If you make gratuitous insults to Muslims, the number of them who turn terrorist will grow! At the moment this is small, and we can hope to contain the problem, and encourage the sensible muslims to stay civilised. Let’s not throw more wood on the fire, unless you secretly want a widening of the conflict?

  • Dale Amon

    A little satire Nick? But seriously, any one who is so thin skinned as to have been insulted by my words is so deserving of being insulted that I’d be happy to do it intentionally.

  • nick g.

    That’s alright in civilised countries, where people know something about freedom of expression, and even practice it. But if you ever end up in Canada, like Mark Steyn, you’ll be pounced on by a human rights commission!
    And it wasn’t your words, but people doing what you said- facing away from Mecca- which would instigate violence. Would-be jihadists aren’t likely to read this site (thank Allah!).

  • Kim du Toit

    I’m sorry, I was just pointing out that the romance of the DC-3 was misplaced. I had no idea that by doing so, I was giving tacit approval of an unelected bureaucracy’s loony decision.

    As Coward said [paraphrased], “Just read the words as I wrote them.”

  • countingcats,

    Sorry, and in my case it was 4 decades ago. I had to get the book off the shelf though.

  • “Just read the words as I wrote them.”

    I did.

  • Mike,

    So we both read it at about the same time then?

    Pink cover? Star on the front cover displaying her statuesque self with only a cloth wrapped around her hips? A dead dragon and Rufo serving in style?

  • Daniel

    I can’t get that excited about this. While the typical lib response is, let the market decide, the fact is, most airline customers don’t pay much attention to the type of plane in which they’re passengers.

    I suppose one could bring a lawsuit against the airline if one of them crashes. Even so, it’ll be the lawyers who win in the end.

  • “While the typical lib response is, let the market decide, the fact is, most airline customers don’t pay much attention to the type of plane in which they’re passengers.”

    “The fact is” that Air Atlantique was doing business with people who exactly opposite. They were not “most airline customers”.

    Jeezis.

  • countingcats,

    Yep that one.