Congratulations on your career and may the Lord grant you and your friend many years in health and happiness. I got qualified on the DC-6 but before my first line flight I was transferred to jets. My loss for sure.

I'm going to do another around the world flight in MSFS using the PMDG DC-6. I've already done one around the world flight in the P-38.

Agreed

Thanks a lot for your amazing comment. I have been on board when the DC-6 was flown from Windhoek to Salzburg and did some filming during the restoration. It´s a fantastic airplane and I understand very well why your father loved it./Frank

Take-off TV Thank you Frank, and thank you for a beautiful video. My father spent thirty years hauling cargo all over the state of Alaska in DC-6s, I grew up on board those trusty old birds. One still comes out of Anchorage on a regular basis and I always stop whatever I’m doing to watch and listen as she flys by. I’m not positive but I think the old bird that still flys by is 80B, known as 80 Bravo she was Howard Hughes’s airplane, and she was the best in the fleet of DC-6s that Northern Air Cargo owned having next to no time on her when they acquired her from the Howard Hughes estate. When I was a kid and dad said “were flying 80 Bravo today” I was in, wherever she was going throughout the great state of Alaska. My dad was the number one pilot on the line at NAC and had been for over 20 years before the Flying Bulls came to NAC looking for some expertise. By the time Red Bull came a knocking on Northern Air Cargo’s door for some help with training my dad was flying the Boeing 727 but his love of the DC-6 never left him and he jumped at the chance to get back in her again and help the Flying Bulls take her through her first flight, flight testing, and certification with the FAA and then be her Pilot for a few more years until he retired at age 60 as he had always planned. At age 66 he was diagnosed with stomach cancer. He said “it’s ok, I’ve lived more in one life then most do in two, if it’s my time I’m ok with that”. He died Sept 11, 2015. The Flying Bulls gave him the chance and the honor to be a part of something great towards the end of his career as a pilot. He cherished the plane and the people he came to love at the Flying Bulls, he considered them family and was proud to have been a part of it. Thank you again for this video, it means a lot to me and the legacy of my father. As long as this bird lives so shall a piece of my father. Thank you

@@craiglee5568 Thanks so much again for your amazing comments. It makes me proud that you found and like this video. All the information that you are sharing with us about your father and your relationship to him is so heart warming. All the best to you, Frank

I worked with your dad. I’m sorry to hear of his passing. He flew a horse to Deadhorse. True story.

Moose Pass Hippie that is awesome, I would love to hear that story.

+Graeme Williams Thank you for your very competent statement.

Like driving an old Mack truck.

Dieter is a little boy and a philanthropist in one. Many of his projects are ones I would have pursued as a little boy (and now) with unlimited money.

@@The_ZeroLine Just incredible collection and the things they do with them. 23 airplanes at the moment I believe, and the cinematography and photography they do to promote the airplanes is world-class. Their team are extremely qualified pilots as well... a Red Bull Air Race world champion among them. And they don't just sit! With unlimited money, I, too, would take my Caravan Amphib to Zell am See for lunch.

Did you get your paws on DOC while it was at McConnell?

thanks for your comment :)

The one in this video is the sister aircraft of the one PMDG used to model their MSFS version.

Amazing story :) Thank you!

She came from great stock, the tough-as-nails DC-3!

Who did you fly with? My dad, Doug Lee, was a pilot for NAC for 30 years flying those old birds before going to fly the Red Bull DC-6.

This is like 4014 running around the southwest US. Thank you UP

Thanks for sharing this amazing story!

Sounds like an interesting story worth writing up.

Best workhorse indeed! However, I put my bets on the Connie and Stratocruiser as being more iconic

Actually the DC-6 can maintain flight on only two engines. Typical cruise settings only require about 55% of available power.

Thanks for your amazing comment. /Frank

@@TakeoffTVnet My pleasure, Frank. Please, keep posting videos like this. Cheers /Branko

Nothing on earth like them.

There are so many skills needed to refurbish this aircraft. I would love to learn them all some day.

tim mayer. I lived in Santa Monica during that time. I was 15 at the time, used to ride my bicycle to Clover Field pretty much once a week. I would peek through a little opening of the hanger door while you were working on it ! The hanger was not to far from the FBO and observation deck towards the east end of the airport. When you guy's finally rolled it out it was parallel with the runway with the nose pointing West. Never did see it start up. Small World.... WOW. Ps did you know John Grooms ? N7006E 175 Cessna. I got to fly with him a few times. What fun that was, Ralph L

The sales power of Caffeine and Sugar!!!!!! better than Gold.

It’s actually the reverse. It was a military transport and then for civilian transport. It was because of the war so many could be cheaply purchased by airlines and used primarily as a regional transport.

@@The_ZeroLine The DC-3 resulted from a marathon telephone call from American Airlines CEO C. R. Smith to Donald Douglas, when Smith persuaded a reluctant Douglas to design a sleeper aircraft based on the DC-2 to replace American's Curtiss Condor II biplanes. The DC-2's cabin was 66 inches (1.7 m) wide, too narrow for side-by-side berths. Douglas agreed to go ahead with development only after Smith informed him of American's intention to purchase twenty aircraft. The new aircraft was engineered by a team led by chief engineer Arthur E. Raymond over the next two years, and the prototype DST (Douglas Sleeper Transport) first flew on December 17, 1935 (the 32nd anniversary of the Wright Brothers' flight at Kitty Hawk) with Douglas chief test pilot Carl Cover at the controls. Its cabin was 92 in (2,300 mm) wide, and a version with 21 seats instead of the 14-16 sleeping berths of the DST was given the designation DC-3. There was no prototype DC-3, and the first DC-3 built followed seven DSTs off the production line for delivery to American Airlines. (From Wikipedia - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_DC-3).

how is AV gas getting harder to get? there are a lot of aircraft that still use it like the Cessna 172, the worlds most popular trainer. AV gas will be around for as long as there are piston engines in the sky.

@@wedgie502, I got that from a story about a company operating out of Alaska that was having some difficulty in obtaining AV gas and were having to use their piston planes less and less.

This was one of last (or the last) DC-6s that have been build. The jet age started shortly after that. /Frank