Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 12, 1994 TAG: 9405120182
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By LON WAGNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A flying hunk of American history landed Wednesday afternoon in Roanoke.
It dripped oil on the runway. Parts from scrap metal dealers held it together. People walked around it, tilted their heads up and gawked at its metal underbelly as people gawk at reassembled dinosaur skeletons.
The once-noble Lockheed Constellation - known for its triple-tail design, its four-engine power and its black dolphin-like nose - has seen more honorable days. The Air Force Military Air Transport Service "Connie" hauled food and supplies into East Germany during the Berlin Airlift in 1949.
Its sister plane was President Eisenhower's plane. Vern Raburn, an owner and pilot of the Connie, thinks - though he's not sure - that British Prime Minister Winston Churchill flew on the plane.
Yet Raburn makes no apologies about how the Scottsdale, Ariz., Constellation Group has turned one of the last Connies in good condition into a flying museum.
The Constellation Group flies the Connie to a different city every few days, parks it on a runway, ropes it off, sets up a cash register and shows it to nostalgia buffs and other curious folks. Three dollars for adults; one dollar for children 6-12.
"That's how she earns her keep now," Raburn says. "I have a hard time with some of the guys who fly her, because they think their job is over when they land. But really it's only starting then. They have to set up, sell the tickets, sell T-shirts."
Lockheed built 856 Constellations between 1943 and 1958, and the civilian version of the C121A military plane was one of the first commercial planes with a pressurized cabin.
Billionaire Howard Hughes drew up the specifications for the first Constellations, which he ordered for his fleet at Trans World Airways.
Many Americans had their first flight on a Constellation. Roanoker M.E. Saleeba Jr., who went out Wednesday to look at the Connie, remembers flying nonstop from Washington to Miami in 1956.
He remembers almost word-for-word the captain's announcement that they were cruising at 25,000 feet, and with the help of a tail wind had reached a speed of 325 mph.
In the earlier days of commercial airplanes, Saleeba recalled, flying was a big deal. Travelers dressed for the occasion.
"I have a picture of that trip," Saleeba said. "Everybody's dressed in shirt and tie, coats, handbags. It was quite a thing."
Only 45 Connies remain, and only two still fly. Many of them were phased into retirement - then the scrap heap - after serving as commercial planes in the Caribbean.
The Connie on display in Roanoke pulled a less honorable duty during the 1970s and early '80s when it was used to spray for bugs in Canadian forests.
Now the Connie likely has been given its last assignment: glistening in the sun, dripping oil and making money.
by CNB