Warbird Information Exchange

The rumour mill is reporting that DC-7C N777EA, which has been static at Goodyear airport since the late '70s, is to be returned to the air. Anybody out there know the who, what, when, and why?

it is owned by the Evan Mosely, the same Mosely as the Corsairs. LAt time I saw it, was on the north end of the Goodyear airport.

Hey Matt, the airplane is registered to an oil company of some sort. Is that related to the Moseley's somehow? I was good friends with the late Ernie Mosely and I know he mentioned that they owned it but I figured they must have sold it off somewhere along the line. Be nice to see the old girl cleaned up and operating again. Apparently there was a write up concerning future plans for the airplane in the West Valley View newspaper but I did not see it. Time will tell I guess.

The aircraft is owned by the Pyramid Oil Company, and many offers to buy it have been turned down. It still has the original interior. You can see it on Google Maps at the north end of Goodyear Airport in Phoenix.

Here's a link to a fairly recent photo:

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1047585/M

This was the last DC-7 built, C/N 45549 / 1041, and was delivered to KLM in December of 1958. It went through several owners after being sold by KLM in 1962, and was bought by Pyramid in 1973.

The owners are apparently a very religious group, and this aircraft figures very heavily in their transportation plans after the Rapture.

Walt

Would be cool to see a DC-7C flying again. I can remember when I was loading air tankers in Reno in the late 80's T&G brought a couple in for a big fire we were working #115 and ???, It was weird seeing the outer main tires almost hanging off the taxi way. That was actually a limiting factor for the air tanker base's the airplane could load out of.
Scott....

Rarebear is right about the rapture plans, and the oil company is the Mosely's.

Ernie must have kept the religous aspect of his families' life a closely guarded secret. I had not heard of it until I started doing some research on N777EA in the last few days. According to my brother, who read the newspaper article, the intention is to put the airplane back into the configuration it was in when Lady Bird Johnson used it to tour the US during her "Beautify America" campaign. Of course, just because those are the stated intentions does not mean it will happen. Interesting to speculate none the less.