DC-8 PROJECT HISTORY
Welcome to the website that shows our effort to save a 20 foot long, 13 foot high, by 12 foot wide DC-8 cockpit section, all that is left of the very first DC-8 31.
Read on to discover how I got my very own DC-8 nose section. It's last flight was very unusual, it was flow from somewhere in Mexico to Waco Texas with a huge load of drugs! The plane asked the flight controller for permission to land but didn't have a flight plan to land there, and it's pilot acted a bit strange. The controller called the police and soon the plane was surrounded, they said the engines weren't even shut down yet. The people onboard were arrested and the drugs destroyed. The plane then sat at the airport for about 14 years. The plane was to be completely destroyed, but in the spring of 2001 I went to visit Ezra Powell and his amazing 737 project in Texas, and ended up getting the DC-8 cockpit! It weighs over eight thousand pounds and proved a handful for us to move ourselves.
I also moved a 15 foot long by 14 foot wide 747 cockpit. The 747 cockpit that came from the Pan Am 747 known as the Clipper Sea Serpent and it was purchased by my friend Steve Smith. Steve has also helped me get some rare parts for my F-4 Phantom project, most impressively the rear throttles and the nuclear armament switch. I understand the 747 has now been sold.
DC-8 IDENTITY; Manufacturer's Serial Number 45274, it was built for and delivered to Pan American Grace (Panagra) as N8274H. It was the first block 31 DC-8 manufactured, and the 52nd DC-8 built. The 31 models were an Intercontinental version with a navigator's station, increased fuel, long range 4 x Pratt & Whitney JT4A-9 turbojets rated at 74.71 kN (16,800 lb st) each, three hundred thousand pound max weight, and with extended wing tips, but few were built as most Airlines opted for the slightly more capable 32 model (They actually began to build the 32's first). It was also the first DC-8 for Panagra, in other words it was their first jet airliner. My cockpit is so old it was replacing prop driven DC-7B airliners! Even more amazing is that much of the interior is wood, something you don't see on jets today. Panagra accepted the plane on April 6, 1960, and it entered service between Buenos Aires and New York on May 2 via an interchange agreement. Panagra operated the DC-8 northbound as far as Panama, where a Pan Am crew took it on to Miami. The Miami-New York sector was flown by National crews. Formed by the merger of Chilean AW and Peruvian AW with ownership split 50% each between Aviation Corporation of the Americas (Pan American Airways' parent company) & W.R.Grace Shipping Co. it operated from 1928 to 1967. Panagra also operated three other DC-8 31's, N8275H, N8276H, and N8277H.
When Panagra was bought out by Braniff in 1967 my plane continued to fly for Braniff on the same route, but most of it's time was logged flying for Capitol International Airlines. Braniff International was around from 1948 to 1982.
This aircraft mainly flew with Capitol (N4901C, then as N905CL)(this airline was around from 1967 to 1981), Air Fleets(N905CL) and Sun Land (N1800) until it ended up in Las Vegas in storage in 1981. Sun Land was formed in 1980 and went under in the next year. There are pictures of N905CL with Sun Land written on the sides of the aircraft, and I found some rare Sun Land luggage tickets in the cockpit.
It was also leased by VUELOS ESPECIALES LIBERIANOS (VEL Costa Rica) as N90GTB. This company was around from 1983 to 1986. How it would then end up hauling a load of drugs to Waco Texas in beyond me.
The timeline of the cockpit's service is as follows,
N8274H Delivered to Panagara 6/6/60
N1800 Merged with Braniff 2/1/67
Capital bought 11/9/67
N4901C Capitol re registered 4/68
National Airlines leased 12/8/69
National Airlines returned to Capitol 12/1/72
N905CL Capitol re registered 6/3/77
Overseas National leased 4/24/79
ONA returned to Capitol 9/79
Air Fleets leased 11/1/79
returned to Capitol 4/80
Sun Land leased 6/9/80
returned to Capitol 2/2/81
Texas Air Carrier bought 8/10/82
Vuelos Especiales Liberianos bought 3/1/83
Withdrawn From Use and stored Waco Tx 3/83
Boeing's records list my DC-8 as being retired 10-24-86 with 50.410 flying hours.
Any information you can email me would be greatly appreciated.
Many of the thumbnails an the next few pages show less than the full picture, so be sure to click the thumbnails.
PROJECT GOALS; Some of you who have known me and my attempt to build an F-4 Phantom simulator may be surprised to see me involved with commercial simulation. When I saw the aircraft being destroyed in Waco my concern was to save the cockpits. They were going to be smashed up then dumped in a local landfill. They had taken a backhoe and had ripped up most of the DC-8, all that was left intact was the cockpit. To me the rare DC-8 cockpit belonged in a museum, not a land fill. I also considered the fact that I might never again run across an opportunity like this to get such a huge cockpit. So my priority is save the cockpits, and with the 747 that meant getting it to Steve's caring hands (now Leroy's) and with my DC-8 it means restoring it to a more pleasant condition. Since I do have a DC-8 sitting here, there is no reason not to outfit it a simulator. I was going to make it a generic glass type sim for ease of construction, but now there are companies building ready made gages that run off of flight simulator 2002. These will fit in the DC-8's original instrument panels so I have decide to take this route rather than the glass cockpit. Take a look at the SimKits website to see their gauges. You can also see an interview with them at SimPits.
THE FIRST RESCUE ATTEMPT; In the summer of 2001 my Dad and I made our first trip to Waco with his truck. The preparation took days. We had to buy several hundred dollars worth of hazard lights, red flags, and oversized load signs. I then spent a lot of time on hold on the phone to find out what was required by the Texas and Arkansas departments of transportation. Texas required a ten thousand dollar bond and I had to get oversize load permits for both States.
We looked at different trailers for hauling the DC-8 and settled on out little 16 foot long utility trailer because even it was barely low enough to meet our requirement. I calculated the cockpit would be 2 inches short of our 15 foot tall limit. We prayed I was right! Dad then took an extra hitch he had and welded it to the front of the trailer to lengthen it to over 18 feet in length.
It ended up being one of those trips where nothing seems to go right. Before we made it two miles me had a flat tire. By the time we got to Waco every tire on the trailer had blown out! It was miserably hot and the truck has no airconditioner. Then we discovered that the 747 cockpit still had a large section of first class attached. Because it had taken so long to drive down due to all the blow outs we where now facing the weekend and that meant not being able to rent what we needed to cut the cockpit. The DC-8 turned out to heavy for our trailer, so we pulled what instruments we could from the 747 to make sure they were not destroyed or stolen and then drove home.
SECOND RESCUE ATTEMPT; On 8/28/01 we went again. On our second trip my brother Cody was able to also go with us. This made me happy because normally if two of us can't solve a problem the 3rd one can. We have always worked efficiently together. The trailer got another modification, dad welded a 3rd axle to the trailer to make sure it could handle the DC-8's weight. Please excuse the quality of many of the following pictures, they were taken with a digital camera from a TV. Most of the pictures are thumbnails so click on them for the entire picture.
Day One. --This trip we made good time to Waco with no real problems, the Arkansas Department of Transportation did hold dad for a little while when he had to cross the scales, but nothing came of it and we were on our way. We did notice that for some reason our CB radios didn't seem to have any range. Once we made it to Waco we bought new antennas and that solved the problem. We also found out the night we arrived at Waco that that day had broken their 27 year record for the amount of rainfall for one day. We hoped the rain would now hold off for us...
Day Two. -- We were at the airport by 7 AM and I got permission from security to go to the cockpits. It turned out President George Bush was flying in and out of the airport because his ranch was close by, the police said there would be times we would have stop our work when the President was in the area.
The cockpits had been moved by the airport manager to a spot that was out of the way along a little gravel road. Thankfully the road was not bothered by all the rain. We decided that today we would work on loading the DC-8 and cutting the rest of the first class section from the 747 cockpit. The DC-8 was laying on the wrong side for us to roll it on the trailer so we had to hook to the 4 wheel drive pickup truck and spin it 180 degrees. Dad then pulled the trailer along side then Cody and I pulled off it's tires on one side to lower it while dad started cutting the 747. We hooked the cockpit to the pickup and carefully rolled it on to the trailer.
About then the 747 Air Force One came in for a landing. A while later the President rode in on the old 707 Air Force One that had been in use since the Kennedy Administration. It turned out to be the 707's last flight with a president, after landing they held a retirement ceremony. Then it took off to California to be placed on display at the Ronald Reagan museum.
After we carefully jacked the trailer back up I began putting the tires back on. My brother who was cutting the floor of the 747 suddenly ran out yelling the cockpit was on fire! I grabbed the fire extinguisher and ran to the now smoking cockpit. I could see the grass under the cockpit burning so I sprayed the fire extinguisher, but could not reach all of the fire. Soon it was flaring up under the cockpit again. Cody jumped in the pickup and drove off toward the airport's fire department. Dad and I used the water we had in the water jugs on the fire but after a while we ran out. When the fire department showed up the fire had spread to two large wire bundles that hung through two holes in the floor. The fire followed the wires inside the cockpit and began to burn the engineer's station. I hope I'm never in an aircraft that is on fire, the smoke was toxic.
The fire trucks finally showed up and the big truck began spraying the cockpit with water, however it was spraying the end where there was hardly any fire.
Soon flames we shooting out the overhead escape hatch and at times the black smoke was so bad I could no longer see the cockpit. They finally pulled out a hose and sprayed it in the front of the cockpit where the fire was burning up the engineer's station. After that the smoke died down and they were able to enter the cockpit from the rear, soaking the inside as they went. I was very concerned that Steve's cockpit had been damaged beyond repair. After the fire department soaked the cockpit and the fire was out we discovered the damage was not as bad as I had feared. The engineer's panel was destroyed and the interior there is gone, but the shell is ok and the forward part of the cockpit for the most part was untouched.
After about an hour the fire trucks left and we continued with our rescue mission. Cody finally got the rest of the first class section cut from the cockpit. The floor was a lot of work because the framework extended over a foot below the floor. I had to peel back the floor so Cody could cut the frame with the saw. After this was accomplished we hooked Cody's 4x4 pickup to the first class section and pulled it up so the floor was pointing into the air.
The picture above shows the 1st class section (or maybe it was a lounge?) pulled up into the air. The black earth between the sections is the result of the fire.
This made it easier for Cody to cut the section in half, then he cut one of the sections down even more, leaving first class in a total of four pieces. By this time it had been a very long day and the sun was going down, so we headed to the motel.