Weird Harold
07-10-2008, 11:47 AM
Dakotas grounded – but not before one final spin
Jun 20 2008 by Alan Weston, Liverpool Daily Post (Dakotas grounded – but not before one final spin)
THEY provided vital wartime service during D-Day by parachuting Allied troops into occupied Europe.
However, the Dakota aircraft was originally designed in 1935 as a luxury civilian aircraft, a role it resumed after the war and maintained until as recently as a decade ago.
But now the much-loved “Daks” have finally been grounded as a passenger-carrying service – because of new European regulations.
From next month, responsibility for allowing passengers to enjoy trips on historic aircraft such as the Dakota passes from the UK Civil Aviation Authority to the EU, which insists that all passenger-carrying flights meet modern safety standards, regardless of the age of the aircraft.
...
Also known as the C-47, the Douglas DC3 provided forty years of military service and 73 years of continuous commercial passanger and freight service.
It is typical of bureaucratic hubris to deem an aircraft that can lose both engines and half of it's flight control surfaces, yet still pick and choose where and how it comes back to earth as "unsafe for passenger service."
Jun 20 2008 by Alan Weston, Liverpool Daily Post (Dakotas grounded – but not before one final spin)
THEY provided vital wartime service during D-Day by parachuting Allied troops into occupied Europe.
However, the Dakota aircraft was originally designed in 1935 as a luxury civilian aircraft, a role it resumed after the war and maintained until as recently as a decade ago.
But now the much-loved “Daks” have finally been grounded as a passenger-carrying service – because of new European regulations.
From next month, responsibility for allowing passengers to enjoy trips on historic aircraft such as the Dakota passes from the UK Civil Aviation Authority to the EU, which insists that all passenger-carrying flights meet modern safety standards, regardless of the age of the aircraft.
...
Also known as the C-47, the Douglas DC3 provided forty years of military service and 73 years of continuous commercial passanger and freight service.
It is typical of bureaucratic hubris to deem an aircraft that can lose both engines and half of it's flight control surfaces, yet still pick and choose where and how it comes back to earth as "unsafe for passenger service."