Leeham News and Analysis
There's more to real news than a news release.
Leeham News and Analysis
- GE testing of giant GE9X engine aims for maturity at entry into service June 30, 2025
- Bjorn’s Corner: Air Transport’s route to 2050. Part 28. June 27, 2025
- Parent agency, FAA often at odds as politics outweighs safety June 26, 2025
- Electric Flight and the Ugly Duckling June 25, 2025
- Engine makers tout “Plan A” but have “Plan B” backups in R&D June 23, 2025
Grand jury focuses on convicted felon in airport deal
Scot Spencer is a name some of us will remember as one of the sordid players in commercial aviation.
Spencer and co-investors purchased Braniff II from the Hyatt family in the late 1980s and proceeded to run it into bankruptcy. Out of those ashes rose Braniff III, which promptly also went into bankruptcy. Spencer and some of the same co-investors wound up convicted of bankruptcy fraud. The US Department of Transportation banned Spencer from commercial aviation. It’s been assumed by many that this meant airlines but others believed the ban was much broader.
After serving his time, Spencer wound up in San Bernadino (CA), running another airline (which DOT shut down) and incredibly, this smooth-talker wound up managing the former Norton AFB for a transition to a civilian airport with a goal of commercial airline service.
Historical Flight Foundation’s DC-7B: Trip Report
I had the opportunity this month to join a group of 50 aviation geeks on the first international passenger flight of a Douglas DC-7 in decades.
Historical Flight Foundation’s Eastern Airlines DC-7B restoration, Opa-Locka Airport (Miami) prior to boarding for our trip to St. Maarten. Photo by Scott Hamilton.
This airplane, N836D, was delivered to Eastern Airlines in 1958. It flew with Eastern for about seven years and was sold to the Nomad travel club, which operated it for a number of years, still with the EA interior, before selling it to a third party who intended to create another travel club but never completed funding. It sat in St. Paul (MN) for 33 years until the owner of Florida Air Transport (FAT) discovered it and bought it. The Historical Flight Foundation was created for restoration to full EAL 1958 colors.
Ralph Pettersen, who was on the HFF trip, several years ago wrote this article with photos of the interior of the DC-7B as it had been stored at the St. Paul Airport.
Wikipedia has this history of the DC-7. Eastern ordered 49 DC-7Bs, more than any other carrier. According to the book, From the Captain to the Colonel, a history of Eastern by the late Robert Serling, EAL’s CEO Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker over-ordered the DC-7, knowing the jet-powered Boeing 707 and Douglas DC-8 were around the corner. (Eastern ordered the DC-8.) According to the book, had Eastern ordered fewer DC-7s and Lockheed Electras and more DC-8s, Eastern would not have been at a competitive disadvantage during the early years of the jet age.
When flying had panache
We’re off May 15-21 on another adventure (the previous one we talked about being our Alaskan polar bear photo safari). This time we’re scheduled on a trip that includes 12 hours of flying in a Douglas DC-7B
This airplane was originally Eastern Air Lines and it was discovered, with the original EAL interior, and restored. Here is a story about this restoration.
Ice Road Tourist
We’re big fans of the History Channel’s Ice Road Truckers (also available on Comcast On Demand), so when the opportunity arose to take a photo-tour that included Alaska’s famed Dalton Highway (aka the Haul Road) featured in Ice Road Truckers in the last two seasons en route to see polar bears, the Northern Lights and Alaska’s famed scenery, we leapt at the chance. We previewed our trip in our North to Alaska post.
Carlile Trucking Co. is featured in Ice Road Trucker. This is at the Coldfoot truck stop on the Haul Road.
North to Alaska
We are off Oct. 2-11 North to Alaska for a photo safari, to Barter Island. This photo is from someone else’s trip, as found on Google Images.
We’ll be driving up the Dalton Highway (well, someone else will be doing the driving), just like on Ice Road Truckers, only (hopefully) without the ice and the sub-freezing temps.
We will be out of cell phone and out of email range; we won’t be posting, writing or doing anything that is work. If you are not already an approved poster, your comments will be in the queue until we get back. Some of you unfortunates for some reason sometimes get IDd as spam even if you have posted before and you will have to wait till we’re back.
Be sure to check out below the jump, too. All via Google Images.
The irreverance of Buzz Aldrin
Let’s start out the week with this humorous and enlightening interview with retired US astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon.
In it, he answers one of mankind’s most pressing question.
A little irreverence
We came across a news item that in the wake of the weird new Russia’s United Aircraft Co. will bid for the KC-X that just seems to call for a moment of irreverence.
Let’s recall that as a youth, we learned that to clean the gunk that built up on automobile battery terminals, you could use Coca Cola. (What this does to your insides, one can only imagine.) Then there are the numerous reports that too many hamburgers and hot dogs, sweeteners and such can cause cancer.
Now here’s the irreverent news item. It seems that, according to this report, aviation can use apricots to strip the paint off airplanes.
We’ll have to stick with ice cream….
Airplane damage at IAD
Here are two photos supplied by Richard Aboulafia of the damage to airplanes from the blizzards and snowfall at Washington Dulles International Airport.
An airline with a sense of humor
No commentary needed. More photos after the jump. We don’t know the origin of these; we received them by email. Click on the photo to get a larger, more readable image.
