I'm going to try and get some pictures of this bird later this week. Maybe even some with air under her wings!!!
I'll keep you posted...
Old plane gets new life
A Douglas DC-7 that has been sitting unused in St. Paul for 33 years will be flown this week to Florida, where its new owner plans a complete restoration.
BY TOM MAJESKI
Pioneer Press
After sitting on the tarmac at St. Paul Downtown Airport for nearly 33 years, a weather-beaten, one-of-a-kind Douglas DC-7 will roar down the runway sometime later this week, lift gracefully into the air and head for a complete renovation in Florida.
Once the restoration project is completed, the four-engine classic — tail number N836D — will fly travel club members to air shows around the country and perhaps as far away as Europe, said the plane's new owner, Carlos Gomez of Miami-based Legendary Airliners.
Gomez, who co-owns the company with Marc Wolff, bought the DC-7 last November from Joe Kocour, 80, of Roseville for $40,000.
Kocour purchased the plane in 1971 from the Nomads Air Travel Club in Detroit and flew it to St. Paul with the intention of starting his own company, Twentieth Century Travel Club.
Like the plane, Kocour's dream never left the ground.
"We tried everything to get foundation money to do the annual (inspection) and hire people," Kocour said. "We never got it. It really would have been a good thing. It would have been the only (travel club) here."
To circumvent strict Federal Aviation Administration regulations governing commercial airliners, owners of vintage airliners form travel clubs. Members pay to fly on these old birds mainly for nostalgic reasons. In the view of the FAA, the members are not airline passengers and the aircraft are not commercial airliners.
Douglas DC-7s, which first climbed into the skies during the early 1950s, were among the last of the great piston-engine airliners. The later models were powered by four turbocharged, 3,400-horsepower, 18-cylinder radial engines and carried up to 110 passengers. At the time, they were fast — up to 400 mph — and plush.
"It was the Cadillac of the airways," Kocour said. "It was one of the first airliners that could fly nonstop between New York and Europe."
But long before the last DC-7 rolled off the assembly line in 1958, its mission as a passenger carrier was quickly being overtaken by the Boeing 707 and other jetliners. By the mid-1960s, DC-7s were being pulled from service and converted into freighters, fire bombers and charters.
N836D left the Douglas plant in 1958 and became part of a fleet of DC-7s at Eastern Air Lines. Named "The Golden Falcon," it flew between New York, San Juan and Mexico City before it eventually was sold to the Detroit travel club. The club, in turn, sold it to Kocour after it bought a Lockheed Electra, a four-engine turboprop.
Today, "The Golden Falcon" is the only DC-7 in the world with its original interior.
"Basically, it's a museum piece," Gomez said.
Since early June, Gomez, his father, Martin, and a small crew of volunteers have been working 13- and 14-hour days, seven days a week, crawling in and around the aircraft to make sure that everything works — and will keep on working until "The Golden Falcon" lands in Florida.
"We're doing everything we can to make it home safe,'' Gomez said. "We're trying to avoid any surprises."
So far, they've started all four engines, recovered the fabric-sheathed rudder, replaced the tires, jacked up the plane and operated the landing gear, checked and repaired the flight instruments and electronic gear, replaced all the rubber fuel hoses, repaired assorted fuel and oil leaks and checked and serviced all the flight controls.
When everything is ready, the crew will replace dozens of inspection panels, crank up the big radial engines and perform high-speed taxi tests to ensure that everything holds together under the stress and vibrations of near-takeoff conditions.
Gomez also has to convince the FAA to grant him a ferry permit.
Once it climbs into the air either Thursday or Friday, the plane will head for Atlanta for refueling. Gomez said Atlanta was selected because it once was home to Eastern Air Lines and a group of retired Eastern pilots is eager to check out "The Golden Falcon."
Gomez said restoring the aircraft to the way it looked in 1958 will take 18 months to two years to complete. He doesn't know what it will cost but says $500,000 would be a conservative ballpark figure. The only reason he can hold the cost that low is because he, his father and a dedicated group of volunteers will do much of the work without pay.
During the 1970s and early 1980s, Kocour and his wife, Louise, kept the DC-7 in pristine condition. They periodically started the engines and taxied it around the airport. The three-tone green and white interior was kept spotless. Each seat pocket contained an airsickness bag and a Nomads Travel Club safety card, and the toilets were stocked with toilet paper and toiletries. They covered the carpeting to keep it clean.
But during the past two decades, "The Golden Falcon" sat motionless on the tarmac while Kocour hunted for a buyer. About the only time it moved was when Kocour's friend, Dennis Eggert, hooked a tug to the nose landing gear and pulled it to higher ground to escape rising floodwaters.
During the years, a number of people came to look at the old airplane, but they were tire kickers and not buyers.
"We had some people from Eastern approach us," Kocour said. "They wanted to buy it and put it in a museum, but they never followed through with the money."
Kocour said the Metropolitan Airports Commission, which owns the airport, also was pressuring him to remove the plane from its property.
About four or five years ago, Kocour contacted Gomez and asked whether he wanted to buy the airplane.
"I told him he was crazy," Gomez said. "Sometimes in life, the timing isn't right."
Gomez, who has restored three DC-7s and three DC-6s and currently operates a DC-7 and a DC-6 as freighters, said he had been told by a number of people that Kocour's plane was worthless because it had been under water.
But one day, one of Gomez's associates sent him photos of N836D's interior. Impressed, Gomez immediately picked up the phone, called Kocour and asked whether he could come to St. Paul the next day to look at the aircraft. Kocour agreed.
Gomez said he checked out the DC-7, quickly determined that it had never been in the water and asked Kocour to join him for a cup of coffee. Less than an hour later, the deal had been struck.
"Well, it was time," Kocour said. "We couldn't do anything with it."
Gomez hopes the aircraft eventually ends up in a museum, such as the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.
"At the end of the day, it has to be preserved," he said.
