CAPFlyer wrote:
You know, we had a discussion about this over on another forum not too long ago.
Here's the full story. In 1971 American Airlines bought Trans Carribean Airways. When they did, included in the transaction were 2 DC-8F-54's, 1 DC-8F-55, and 2 DC-8-61CF's (Douglas's codes, not mine). They did repaint one of the aircraft, N8783R, one of the DC-8F-54's, which with its sister (N8782R) were with AAL for a bit over a year, but the other aircraft were sold pretty quickly to Seaboard World Airways with the DC-8-54's going to Seaboard after their time with American.
Additionally, during the late 1970's apparently one or more of these aircraft may have returned into American Airlines service during the DC-10 groundings to fly freight and/or passengers either on lease or brought out of storage somewhere.
Are there any pictures of them in AAL livery? I've got an old DOYUSHA DC-8-61 Model in 1/200th and not terribly inspired by it's old red/black JAL stripes, this would be just wierd enough for a place on my model shelf.
TRIVIA TIME- The CF designation on DC-8's alluded to the fuselages using a stouter gauge aluminum in the skins so an airframe built and sold as a body hauler could be converted into a cargo model with a Douglas supplied 'big door' conversion kit, DELTA discovered what happens when you don't pay attention. They sold several DC-8-61's to UPS and agreed to do the -71 freighter upgrades (CFM 56-1's, new pylons, A/C pressurization upgrading from freon to ACM 727 style, etc). They started on one and the airframe just went as limp as warm taffy and distorted badly, turns out the chosen vehicle was NOT built as a CF and the structure couldn't support the big hole in it's side, lots of spares became available!
61/71 and 63/73's still require a straight ahead taxi of about 150 feet to unload the fuselage so the cargo door can be opened and closed. 61/71's also had a MLG truck system that pivoted the aft tires to accommodate sharp turns on pushback (mostly at UALs insistence for HNL) and are very easy to bust if the tug driver isn't aware and on his/her game.
Of the few -62's built (long thin routes like Chicago/Tokyo) a very few made it to -82's so if you see a 50 series length DC-8 with CFM's it's a real oddball.
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