History

This Exact DC-6 left the Douglas production plant in 1958 as a DC-6B and was delivered to the national Yugoslavian airline JAT later that year with a civil registration YU-AFA.

In 1961 it was transferred to the Yugoslav Air Force where it was converted to a luxury plane for the president of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Marshal Josip Broz Tito with the serial number 7451. It later flew with serial numbers 73101 YAF and 7511 YAF.

In 1975 the aircraft was sold to the Zambian Air Force where it was used by the President of Zambia Kenneth Kaunda with serial number 110. When he lost interest in the DC-6 the aircraft was simply stored in a corner of Lusaka’s airport. There Chris Schutte, operator of a small airline business in Windhoek, Nambia, stumbled upon it. He originally intended to purchase it for replacement parts for his DC-4, but he discovered that this DC-6 had a sister plane that rolled off the assembly line directly after it. The two are the last DC-6’s ever built. Schutte bought both at once and first restored the Tito plane which received a civil registration V5-NCF, later its sister as well. Both aeroplanes were in service in Schutte’s business until 1999: sight-seeing over West Africa, tour flights to the Victoria Falls, promotional flights with Miss Universe, and much the same were their duty. The growing tumult along the border to Angola in 1999 put a considerable damper on the tourism business, and Schutte was forced to sell the Tito DC-6.

In March 2000, Sigi Angerer, former head pilot of the Flying Bulls (retired 2013), read in an airline magazine that a DC-6 was for sale in Africa. Angerer acted fast, and two days later he met with Chris Schutte at the airport in Windhoek to draw up a preliminary contract. On July 7, 2000, the plane took off in Windhoek. Onboard were Sigi Angerer, two experienced captains from South African Airways, a film team, the flight engineer from Schutte’s business, an assortment of replacement parts, and a lot of oil for refuelling. The flight to Salzburg took four stages, lasted nearly 28 hours, and went without a hitch. The restoration began in 2001 at a factory constructed in part for the DC-6. It left the factory in the summer of 2004, three years and tens of thousands of hours later. The plane’s registration in Namibia was cancelled and transferred to an American register under the identification number N996DM. It received a completely new interior–true to the overall historical concept as far as possible–, four new engines, and modern flight electronics. During the extremely complex restoration work, the aeroplane was completely dismantled into individual components and then reassembled. The plane’s condition was not as good as originally thought, requiring considerably more work than expected. But there’s a happy ending–not only the virgin flight but also the unanimous judgment of the experts prove that this aeroplane is better now than it ever could have been when new. In July 2013 the DC-6B was finally given Austrian citizenship and now operates under the Austrian registration OE-LDM, making it the first DC-6B to ever receive an Austrian code.

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The Aircraft

Douglas DC-6B

The Douglas DC-6 is a piston-powered airliner and cargo aircraft built by the Douglas Aircraft Company from 1946 to 1958. Originally intended as a military transport near the end of World War II, it was reworked after the war to compete with the Lockheed Constellation in the long-range commercial transport market. More than 700 were built and many still fly today in cargo, military, and wildfire control roles.

The DC-6 was known as the C-118 Liftmaster in the United States Air Force service and as the R6D in the United States Navy service prior to 1962, after which all U.S. Navy variants were also designated as the C-118.

The United States Army Air Forces commissioned the DC-6 project as the XC-112 in 1944. The Army Air Forces wanted a lengthened, pressurized version of the DC-4-based C-54 Skymaster transport with more powerful engines. By the time the prototype XC-112A flew on 15 February 1946, the war was over, the USAAF had rescinded its requirement, and the aircraft was converted to YC-112A, being sold in 1955.

Douglas Aircraft modified the design into a civil transport 80 in (200 cm) longer than the DC-4. The civil DC-6 first flew on 29 June 1946, being retained by Douglas for testing. The first airline deliveries were to American Airlines and United Airlines on 24 November 1946. A series of inflight fires (including the fatal crash of United Airlines Flight 608) grounded the DC-6 fleet in 1947. The cause was found to be a fuel vent next to the cabin cooling turbine intake; all DC-6s were modified and the fleet was flying again after four months on the ground.

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