JohnB wrote:
I'm sure it will be kept in Europe, but I'd love to see the ex-EAL DC-2 return.
Too bad they didn't save a KLM DC-5.
With a few exceptions, North American museums are light on quality transport aircraft.
As expected, interwar types are rare (it was a shame that the Tallmantz Lockheed Orion was sold to Switzerland in the '60s.and Greg Herrick's collection was broken up with the aircraft going into private hands), and even some postwar types are not well represented: Martins, Convairs
Electras...the Boeing 377 is extinct.
Even early jets are very rare, aside from the VC-137Bs in Seattle and Tucson, I can't think of nice 707s or short DC-8s anywhere. The only 880 on display seems to the the Elvis jet.
Anyone (other than the prototypes in Seattle) have a restored early 727, 737, DC-9 out there? A L1011?
One airframe of genuine historic significance is the Viscount in Tucson. It was with TCA, and flew the first turbine revenue flight in North America. It was used as a charter aircraft and eventually given to Puma where it resides in its later paint and seems to have been untouched for decades.
CASM has a TCA viscount and an AC DC-9. Also a Boeing 247.