What an iconic beast from the past she is. I love these wonderful birds. I was born in 1948 here in the Southern United Kingdom. I can remember the Fairchild C-119's flying at high altitude over my home town of Windsor, Berkshire, UK. I first saw your beast pictured in February's issue of Todays Pilot, page 18. Look after Her :)

The C-119 is the aircraft that inspired me to join the USAF when I was a kid. I used to watch them fly in and out of Seward AFB. Was a decision I never found distasteful.

My father was in Taiwan's airforce. Before 1995 the transport fleet was mostly C-119s. I have flown with my father in those aircrafts many times when I was a child. It's nice to see these are still flying.

This 119 was once in service for the Canadian armed forces. It's zig zag stripe was used by the RCAF. I can see the white circle under the wing where it appears to have had the maple leaf in the air Force circle. I also believe N8094 is still at greybull and was also a boxcar that was also in the Canadian forces fleet. That A/C is still there to my knowledge.

Flew to Hagerstown Aviation Museum, Hagerstown, Maryland in November. 2008

This a/c (Forest Service Number 140 is painted on the jet engine cowling) was modified by Hawkins and Powers out of Greybull. They STC’d the jet engine on the C-119 for fire fighting, They operated a number of different a/c doing forest fires, as well as other stuff. Dan Hawkins was chief of helicopters, and Gene Powers was chief of airplanes. Amongst other a/c, they operated P2v’s, c-119’s, A-model C-130’s, and quite a variety of helicopters. The end of the seismic business in 80-81 finished the helos, and a fatal crash of a c-130 added to the forest service grounding the P2Vs finished the airplane side. By the time the company shut down, both Dan and Gene had passed on, so they never saw the sad end of one of the Big forest fire outfits.

Glad at least one of these are kept. There are none left in Canada at all.

I would love to fly one of those old beasts.

The C-119's Taiwan got was not K version. Non of them had the Jet. Later on, they got C-123 which did have the option of jet packs (1 on each wing). By then, my father retired from air force and went over to China Airlines. Oh, and I also had ridden in C-47...:)

is that a jet engine on the roof of the aircarft..was it for heavy cargo loads..thanks

my father flew C-119's out of Washington DC in the early 60's... used to go on them but never got a ride... lol Simon you're lucky.. I hate the jet engine..

Hope you can rescue the "Flight of the phoenix" c119 from the AZ desert before it completely disintegrates

Please don't fly that shitbox over my house.