In article ,
Recliner wrote:
wrote in message

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.

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.

Would have required serious mods to the airframe which would have
compromised originality - another pointer to these machines being
preserved.

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.

To be fair, the weeking out of early 737s, DC9s, 727s and others (BAC-111,
De Havilland Gripper^W Trident) was more down to airport noise
restrictions than anything else. If the same had been applied to the
railways we'd have seen the back of pretty much any locomotive pre-Class
60 (and probably HST to boot) at the same time..

The airliner (well, feederliner) of that era which /is/ still going, and
with many of the early examples still in use (I think..)

And I can't remember when I last saw a first generation Ford Escort from
the same era.

Ooh. 10:40 today. White Mk.1, only mildly rally-modded.

--
Andy Breen ~ Speaking for myself, not the University of Wales
"your suggestion rates at four monkeys for six weeks"
(Peter D. Rieden)