Airplanes as billboards, hotels, gas stations, etc.
 

For a magazine article I'm doing, I'm trying to put together a list of various airplanes that have found second lives as cocktail lounges, billboards, mini-hotels, whorehouses, private homes, whatever. Something more than simple gate guardians or abandoned hulks sitting in somebody's pasture, I'm looking for airplanes that have, basically, been desecrated to some commercial end.

Anywhere in the world is fair game.

There was this Hawker Hunter in the 1990s. I don't know if it's still there:

http://www.thunder-and-
lightnings.co.uk/hunter/survivor.php?id=16

I remember seeing it whilst driving along the A40.

(for some reason this page won't accept thunder-and lightnings.co.uk)

Here's a better picture:

Photo United Kingdom - Air Force Hawker Hunter F.1 WT555

Suggest you go to Airliners.net; search for B747 hostel, and work down; there are a lot of a/c treated thus - DC6/7s and Connies come to mind. I've eaten well in the DC6 at Coventry. Good hunting

There is - or was a decade ago - a Boeing 707 converted into a restaurant at Cairo airport.

The Club 707 Restaurant in Manila, reputedly ex Pan Am, then the Marcos family's personal hack. (707-321 N728PA??)

Here's is a few more aircraft eateries.

Ex Qantas VH-EBP. Boeing 707-338C. c/n 18810-438:
There is a small twin executive jet - a Mitsubishi??? - maybe in the 6 to 8 seat bracket, as an advert on a pole at a car wreckers on Ipswich Road, Brisbane, Australia.

RNZAF Bristol Freighter motel
Woodlyn Park, Billy Black Unique Rail Car Accommodation / Motel, Waitomo Caves, New Zealand

When I was at AFSOUTH, I lived in Parco Azzurro near Arco Felice. The Parco was originally developed by a co-operative of Italian Air Force officers and had a Canadair CL13 Sabre above the parco gates.

The link below provides a listing of retired aircraft in Italy by region. Several are used by restaurants or other commercial facilites.

Velivoli sopravvissuti

I was passing through Accra, Ghana on KQ a few weeks ago and saw that the old Ghana Airways DC10 has been moved from the hanger and taken just off the airport, and loosk to be on the side of road in a "plot" so assume it will be converted into something else?

Martin Mariner caravan...

http://img854.imageshack.us/img854/2848/img658n.jpg

A jet aeroplane is on display next to the Mehrabad airport in Tehran. It used to be a restaurant which then closed for a number of years but I think my wife's cousin (an air hostess for Iran Air) said it had been renovated and had re-opened. IIRC it is located in an aviation outdoor museum.

Jet house/home...

http://img641.imageshack.us/img641/3...planehouse.jpg

There used to be a C-124 just off the airport at Las Vegas McCarran; I believe it was to have/had been used as a restaurant or casino or some such other purpose. It was there in when I went in 2000 and appeared to be in reassonable shape but has subsequently been scrapped.

Where is WT555 now?

Link to the former Super Connie Airplane Bar, Mississuaga, Ontario:


Urban Exploration Resource: Display Location: The Super Connie Airplane Bar

http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/6105/0775667.jpg

http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/3...onalds20dc.jpg

Here's a restaurant in Romania.

http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/u...ing_29/dc3.jpg

Inside the "DC-6 diner" at Coventry. G-SIXC, ex-Air Atlantique.

DSC_0047 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

In France, to the east of Paris, there's a Breguet Duex-Ponts at a spam field in-use as a bar (we had a beer in it!).

Very close to the border of Germany (or what was East Germany) and the Czech Republic there is a Tu-104 in use as a bar. It's on the Czech side, about 200m inside. We also had a beer here!

In the Czech Republic, to the north-east of Prague, there is a IL-18 at a motorway service station. We had a beer here, too. And a 'P'!
This one qualifies easily, as it's been completely re-painted in an orange and white colour scheme.

Somewhere in up-state New York, there is an exclusive hotel which has a converted USCG S-61 as a hotel-room. (not been here, very expensive, probably couldn't afford a beer here!).

In Pattaya, Thailand there is a DC-3 used as an eye-catcher for "Ripley's Believe it or not!". It's painted bright-red, and is stuck half-in/half-out of a building as if it's crashed.

To the east of Pattaya there is a major golf course called the 'Siam Country Club', outside the entrance as an eye-catcher, they have an old NAMC YS-11.

To the south of Pattaya there is the old USAF base at U-Tapao ... now it's U-Tapao Royal Thai Navy base - at the southern end of the runway there is an old DC-3 which is converted into a hotel.

A lot of Ryanair's 737 - 200s were painted with adverts, and that was when they were still operating. I should know, I flew all of them. Unfortunately I have no pictures. Can anyone else come up with them? The "yellow peril " (Hertz), Jaguar, two mobile phone companies ( EI-CJD, the mad cow, and CNT), News of the world, and a beer, come to mind.

Caribou observation post - Vietnam 1964....

http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/2949/img664.jpg