Adventures



Background

This page will be for adventures I've been on. A lot of them will probably have to do with flying, but they don't belong with the PPL page.



Classic DC6-B

I was very lucky to be sent to a conference in Swakopmund in August 2007. Part of the conference was made up of site visits to various mines and metallurgical plants. Being a rather large place, a lot of travel in Namibia is by air. One of the site visits was to Skorpion Zinc, which is very close to the southern border of Namibia, and the other one was to Tsumeb, which is about 3/4 of the way to the northern border. The first trip was for about 50 people, for which one needs a rather large aircraft, or several smaller ones. When we all arrived at Swakopmund airport early in the morning, we found a restored Douglas DC-6B sitting on the apron.

This particular aircraft was the last to roll off the Long Beach production line in 1958. It was delivered to JAT (Yugoslavian Airways) as YU-AFB, but was then pressed into service as a VIP transport for Marshall Tito. Together with its sister it was donated to the Zambian Air Force in 1975 as presidential aircraft for Kenneth Kaunda. Once the jet age arrived in Zambia they were left as derelict in Lusaka.

In 1992 the current owners bought them while purchasing spares for their DC6-A's. Both were lovingly restored, but one was eventually sold to Red Bull. The remaining one has been renamed "Bateleur", and is currently registered as V5-NCG. Namibian Commercial Aviation (www.nca.com.na) operates it under their "Classic Air Travel" arm. At present, it is thought to be the only remaining passenger-carrying DC6-B in the world that is still flying. This was an experience to remember, and will probably be one of those once-in-a-lifetime ones too. If you are ever offered the opportunity to fly on a classic aircraft, take it! You might never get the chance again.

My apologies for the quality of the photographs, I took them with my cellphone.

V5-NCG at Skorpion

26 July 2007 08h15

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V5-NCG at Skorpion

26 July 2007 13h50

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V5-NCG Interior

26 July 2007 13h54

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Website Details

Website Owner: Charles Kohler

Last Update: 16 September 2007