Lockheed VC-121A 'Bataan' back in the air
 

This is worth watching if you're a propliner fan:

Wonderful sight and sound.I take off every hat I have ever worn to all those involved. Bonus of a Mustang chase plane too.

Bloody marvellous! I believe this is another fantastic achievement by Steve Hinton and his Fighter Rebuilders team at Chino.

Now Rod, howsabout bringing her over to Europe for a tour next year...

Steve showed Kermit Weeks around the aircraft a couple of months back. Video from that visit is here:

When it escaped Fort Rucker, early 90s.


EGGW

As a young boy I lived very close to RAF Northolt. Have brilliant memories of US and IAF Constellations flying in and out regularly.
This brings back those memories .

That is really nice to see. When I was visiting the Planes of Fame Museum at Valle Arizona in 2015, they were getting it ready to ferry to Chino and I was lucky enough to be there when they were mounting an engine,

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It took them about twenty minutes to get it bolted on. Not a hard-hat, safety glasses, steel-toed boot or fluorescent jacket in sight!

More video from the first flight here:

Fantastic video. It looks like they must have had a polishing crew working continuously since I saw it in 2015! :)

A nice video ruined by stupid unwanted music:ugh:

Great to see it up in the air again, good looking aircraft that's for sure. I think the "canned heroic" background music was added to appeal to the 'interested/supportive', rather than the die-hard propholics who would be happy just with the sounds and conversations of the aircraft and crew.

Is the Breitling Connie still in Europe and still flying ?

According to a post on WIX, the Breitling Connie was grounded with wing problems in 2018 and is currently dismantled with Meir Motors at Bremgarten. The current owners are looking for a buyer.

(Shhhh! Don't tell anyone but that was me! According to what I'd seen courtesy Google :))

Think the spar needs some serious fettling...

It is said to suffer from bad wing corrosion. Plus, Switzerland after the Ju crash has limited the max number of persons permitted aboard historic aircraft to six (?) or similar, which makes any operational breakeven unfeasible.

I believe it is now owned by a German consortium but they are unable to fund the restoration. Sadly I suspect it will end up in a museum, great pity. Love to fly in one...

I took these two photos at Lajes Field in the Azores in January 1958. The MATS Constellations were one of the main visitors at that time.

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What a quiet rural place it was back then? Thanks for the pictures.

In the `Airframe Workshops` at Halton there used to be an early `Sycamore` helo,in natural metal;if one was found to have `been skiving`/messing about,etc one was sent to spend a little `time-out ` on the `naughty step`,in this case half an hour with a roll of `Wadpol`.?,polishing the helo until it shone..It probably weighed a lot less as the `skin `got thinner,so I have a lot of sympathy for the guys/gals who polished that Connie,,!

Is the HARS Super=Connie still airworthy in Oz?

...or that other Connie that was owned by Lufthansa, but was in the USA when I last thought of it ? What a shame about the Breitling connie, but it can't be easy to own and run such a beast.