In 1978, I began trying to get a
Super Connie for the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington.
I struggled with my first airplane for about 3 years, before
it disappeared (an ex-radar picket airplane, it actually
went back into service and flew across the Pacific! It's
still extant, although now derelict in Manila.) Later in
the 1980s, I landed another candidate airplane down in Van
Nuys, California. Unable to consummate that acquisition,
it also disappeared from my radar (but it too survived, and
is now in the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.)
About 2001,
a third airplane surfaced - this time in Toronto. After about
four years of "fooling around" on this acquisition,
we started to get "serious." It was Saturday,
9 July 2005, when I began the task of bringing this airplane
to the Museum. Since that memorable day, I've worked pretty
near full-time on this project.
From long days and bone-chilling
cold weeks in frigid Toronto to wrestling with lawyers and
bureaucrats and busted budgets, there were more than a few
occasions when I went to sleep wondering if this would ever
actually happen.
But - it did.
in August 2009, ex-TCA
Super G Constellation CF-TGE was moved out of the EAC hangars
for the last time and positioned on the ramp for disassembly
and transport to Boeing Field in Seattle, Washington. This
is Part 1 of the journey.
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