You are at netAirspace : Forum : Spotting and Photography Forums : Aviation Photography

Our member martin404a uploaded this wonderful shot from 1952 yesterday:



He did not have the exact registration, that was not clearly identifiable from the photo, so he asked for background info.

Our database editors did some research, focusing on the aircraft's given name on the nose. Click click d'oh identified it as "Mainliner The Dalles", which enabled us to establish the history of the aircraft:

Line no. 1984 entered service with United Air Lines in 1937 as "Mainliner Oregon", reg. NC18112. It was later rebranded as "Mainliner The Dalles", and received the registration N18112.

The reason for the rebranding is yet unknown to us. One possibility may be that the aircraft flew for the USAF in WWII, as several other UA DC-3s did. However, no military history is recorded for this airframe.

The aircraft later flew for Continental, but was then sold to Air Mauretinie around 1958, where it was registered as 5T-CAC.

It later flew for Spanish airline Spantax as EC-AXS:

View photo on airliners.net 

Later, it was sold to U.L. Drew in Khartoum, Sudan, who registered it as N99210:

"UL Drew was an American WW2 Fighter Ace. He was the owner of Caprivi Airways - so the move from Sudan to Caprivi was not a "real" change of owner. Furthermore (this is where it gets really interesting) Drew was an "open" (i.e. not secret) agent of the CIA and Caprivi Airways was an official CIA operation similar to the more famous "Air America" of Vietnam. CIA involvement in the early stages of the Angolan war is well documented."

http://www.ruudleeuw.com/sa04.htm

During the 1980ies, it flew in Southern Africa, being used for famine relief. It finally ended up in South Africa, as ZS-PAA, where it was photographed at Johannesburg Rand Airfield in 2008, in desolate state:



But it looks like there is hope - it belongs to a company named Phoebus Apollo Aviation, who apparently work on restoring it.

View photo on airliners.net 

So maybe this beautiful aircraft will take it to the skies once again one day.

I contacted Phoebus Apollo Aviation and asked them about the current status of the restoration.

So - there is quite a story behind this photo. Thanks a lot to Eddy for uploading it, and to our database editors for the research!

Zak wrote:Line no. 1984 entered service with United Air Lines in 1937 as "Mainliner Oregon", reg. NC18112. It was later rebranded as "Mainliner The Dalles", and received the registration N18112.

The reason for the rebranding is yet unknown to us. One possibility may be that the aircraft flew for the USAF in WWII, as several other UA DC-3s did. However, no military history is recorded for this airframe.

You probably know this from the research (I had to look it up!), but The Dalles is a city in Oregon. So it's not a totally out-there rebranding.

Thanks for posting the history - very cool to read stuff like that. Everything has a story....

Brett Gartland of Phoebus Apollo Aviation got back to me:

Sorry my feedback has been late back to you. I have attached some photo's for you. I am unable to confirm the line number though.

Here are the photos he sent me:







From what I found on the internet, I'm fairly sure this is the same airframe as in Eddy's photo.

Ask him if you can get a ride.

Click Click D'oh wrote:Ask him if you can get a ride.

Or a water cannon salute.