One such Aircraft was parked in Nagda Jn close to Ujjain In MP Till recently. we had the privilege of going inside during our school days,saw it land for the last time.had to be dismantled and taken away recenly by road carraige. As reported was auctioned at a pittance Rs 9 Lack only just Last yr. SURPRISED HOW IT MISSED THE EYES OF the MP?
I used to fly sometimes in a Dakota flown that time by Sqn.Ldr. Bhaskar frpm Jorhat via dimapur to chakbama mokakchung and aizwal etc. That was in 1978-79, Got grounded and AN32 took over. Tree-top flying and wonderful to fly in. Mr. Chandrashekhar congrats for making the Dakotas survive. Gift it to the Air Force. Ask ex-servicemen to look after it. Venkatesh Iyer
Mr Chandrashekhar is the only MP who takes interest in Deffence related matters.Son of a retired Senior Air Force Pilot,it is natural thing to do.He also initiated the WAR MEMORIAL project at Bangalore against much resistance from many quarters. Dakota is probably the safest aircraft in aviation industry.It is widely used even today in South America flying mostly over the Amazon forest. There one piece in AFTC, jalahalli,bangalore but is not flyworthy today. In early 60,s I had seen a Dakota land and take off from the small airstrip at Jalahalli.
My fear is Mr Chandrashekhar,s effort will be appreciated by very few number of people.Our Air Force like our people do not have a sense of history.
Some trivia...I am sure readers will recollect this one easily. A similar DC-3 plane is the one flown by Daniel Craig in the film 'Quantum of Solace' when they are attacked by a fighter plane... A 'sense of history is indeed' lacking among us Indians,else we would have maintained a few old aircrafts including Mystere's and GNATS which were our main aircraft in 65 war also....Good to see someone taking the trouble in that direction...
DC-3 or C-47 Skytrain that changed air-travel in 1940s and brought the continents closer before the advent of Jet era. this rugged aircraft is still being flown by some private air-operators in south Americas eg Columbia/Bolivia etc. One such version was in the service of Maharashtra state till 1992 and it was scrapped. Mohanbari, Chhabua, Jorhat and Lalmanirhat were specially developed airfields in India by the RAF for US army-airforce (China-Burma-India theatre) to drive out the Japanese from occupied China and Burma. During Jan 1942 to Nov 1945, some 534 planes; flying fortress(B-17), liberator(B-24) bombers and mostly C-3/C-47 military transport planes crashed in Assam-Kunming-Rangoon fort area while crossing the Himalyas (the Hump/Aluminium trail) sending more than 1700 US personnel to eternal piece. For more details, refer www.mia recoveries.org
