It is a quick follow-up remark to the previous post. That one was about possibility in the future to see an aircraft which is one hundred years old, - and not on a museum display, but in the air.
I should correct myself though, that if such a thing as a hundred year-old flying rarity ever to happen, it would not necessarily be ‘one with the radial engine’. Excuse me for my obsession with radials! 
Most probable, it would be a turboprop.
There’s a number of commercial aircraft here, in North America, that already reached a half-mark toward their centennial jubilee, and even beyond.
A few days ago I took a minute to observe a rather common scene from day-to-day operation at Montreal’s Dorval.
Our gate was occupied by other plane, so we had to wait on the apron for a short while. My attention was attracted by this Convair when its prop blades started spinning. “Wow, how wide they are on this ‘oldster’!”, I remember myself wondering at it And then here appeared another turboprop, a Dash-8-400Q.
After I had the pictures and the video downloaded on my home desktop computer, I wanted to check these two planes’ registrations on Transport Canada Civil Aircraft Register. It was a little bit entertaining to found out that there is a 50-year time span between the two’s ‘birthdays’!
Convair-440 of ‘Nolinor’, reg. C-GNRL, was built in 1956. Means, ‘52-year old veteran’! And originally it was equipped with RADIAL! Later, at some points in their fives many Convairs underwent turbine conversions.
On the other hand, a technology marvel, the Dash-8-400Q C-GLQD is just a ‘two-year old baby’!
Should check it out how old are, for example, those DC-8s that we can often see at Toronto.
Some of them logged 100.000 hours!
Our quest for ‘FIRST REGISTERED ONE HUNDRED YEAR OLD FLYING PLANE’ is on
November 16th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
I think what at the end of your carrier as commersial pilot you will find an airworthy 100 year old DC3.2040 + - for a DC3, what is only 32 years, the first 65 must have been the har once, with war servise etc.
Maybe my old Taylorcraft will make as well, 2047 for the T craft. maybe I should build up a spare engine, just in case I make it as well, so I can fly it with a good motor at 103.
Lets stick around for a while longer just bug DOT and FAA.
See you Len
November 17th, 2008 at 2:30 am
Hi, Len,
You are more than welcome to make a post about it on this blog. Write me on Flickr, and we’ll get into details.
nice to hear from you.
Indeed, - wouldn’t that be awesome to fly a 100-year-old aircraft! Certainly, I’ll put your T-craft into my ‘pool of candidates’
It appears the ‘vintage aircraft business’ is quite a serious branch of activity on the general aviation field. I’m going to write a post on how this theme is developing in Russia. Certainly, the country is by far lagging behind the ‘rest of aviation world’, but there’s been some reasons behind that.
Keep in touch, please, glad to have a chat,
S
January 14th, 2009 at 10:47 pm
Great video Sergey! I would love to see this bird fly someday. I agree with you that we will soon see 100 year old aircraft flying in the future, especially with all the technology that we have today.
January 14th, 2009 at 11:47 pm
Hi, Dave,
thank you for looking into ‘my place’
very true,
Another question is, whether we’ll see a ‘fierce competition’ for the trophy of the ‘Very First Claim’
I guess, the exchange that goes on among spotters may be helpful in establishing ‘candidate’s authenticity’ in such a claim, should be the one eventually laid down’