one more for the Thunderbolt: P-47D-15-RE 42-75973, which flew with the 525th FS of the 86th FG from Grosseto, Italy. It was the assigned aircraft of Lt. Riley 'Mo' Stuart, but was damaged beyond repair when Lt Bennie Flake had to make a forced landing on the base on 19 october 1944.
Frontier Airlines N65276, one of the C-47/DC-3's operated by Frontier Airlines. On April 21, 1957, at 1321 hours, N65276, operating as Frontier Airlines flight 7 departed Prescott, Arizona enroute to Phoenix under visual flight rules (VFR) with 21 passengers and one stewardess. As the flight proceeded southbound toward Phoenix the weather deteriorated to a point where the flight could no longer remain clear of clouds and maintain VFR. Captain Welling requested and received an instrument flight rules (IFR) clearance to proceed to Phoenix via Knob intersection thence to the Phoenix omni range, maintain 7000 feet. The crew never acknowledged receiving the clearance. It is suspected that the reason there was no response is that this was the precise moment that flight 7 struck the west ridge of a mountain at the 4500’ level southeast of Prescott shearing off twelve feet of the left wing and six feet of the left aileron. After declaring an emergency, flight 7 landed safely at Phoenix Sky Harbor airport without further incident. There was no injury to the passengers or crew. The wing was replaced and the aircraft continued flying for Frontier. Sadly, N65276 was lost in a tragic accident in 1967 on a snowy Denver day when a rudder-lock had been placed on an elevator and not removed prior to take-off. Both pilots were killed in the crash. More info, as well as pictures, on these incidents, and an earlier mishap with N65276 can be found here: http://fal-1.tripod.com/FL_Crash.html.
Re the IOLAR paint.. you could probably squeeze at least another 3 airlines out of that basic silver with black striping. A good many Rapides were operated by Olley Air Services (and their subsidiaries) in the late 30's prior to them being temporarily swallowed up by Railway Air Services so.. Olley Air Services, Blackpool and West Coast Air Services, Isle of Man Air Services and probably Air Commerce paints could be done from that IOLAR paint with very little work (titles and registrations). Not sure what sort of global appeal they'd have but they'd be very welcome in my hangar
Following your repaints closely.... and with Jan's cockpit resurrected I was hoping to see http://www.raf.mod.uk/bbmf/theaircraft/dakota947.cfm. Any chance? I already have her in the RAE scheme and was hoping to find the KWICHERBICHIN version.
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