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On Apr 2, 7:41 pm, "Michael R N Dolbear" wrote:

Some 1940-1946 airliners, eg DC-3s Dakotas C-47s remain in constant
daily use even if this is sightseeing.

Not in the UK any more.

They were stopped last year. I'm not sure the precise reason but AIUI
it was a CAA directive or similar.

Air Atlantique, the sole UK DC3/C47 operator made a large number of
farewell flights to mark this.

The reason given (which may or may not be entirely true) was an EU
safety directive which has all sorts of sensible rules when applied to
modern airliners, but most of which would irrelevant to Dakotas.
However, I suspect that if they were making enough money from them to
care, they'd have found a loophole or two.

But even before this 'forced retirement, the elderly Dakotas probably
did no more than a handful of passenger flights a year, a very different
work duty to the heavily-worked 1967 stock.

More to the point, the original Boeing 737 and DC-9 airliners were
introduced at the same time as the 1967 stock. I don't think any of
those early models remain in service. The Boeing 747 came along a couple
of years later, and all of its early examples are also long-retired.
And I can't remember when I last saw a first generation Ford Escort from
the same era.