One of then only two flyable Carvairs in the world is seen here in a glorious take-off, a very rare and wonderful sight (and sound)! This beautiful oldie had already seen a lot of the world: it flew as LN-IAE, JA6012, HL4003, VH-INK, N54598, ZK-NWA, N5459X and C-GAAH, before ending up with Brooks Fuel in late 2002. Roger Brooks did a great restoration job on it, but then unfortunately crashed it near McGrath, AK on 30 May 2007.

Conair's Tanker 44 was originally delivered as a Convair 340 to United Air Lines in 1954 as N73153. It would keep that registration with various operators for more than 40 years, until it was purchased by Kelowna Flightcraft in 1999 for conversion to airtanker, and registered C-GEVC, then C-FFKF. It came to Alaska today to battle the Parks Highway Fire and is seen here in the evening light, arriving at Fairbanks to satisfy the customs people.

Tankers 44 and 49 were dispatched from Canada and based at Fairbanks-Ft. Wainwright to combat the Parks Highway Fire burning near Nenana, AK, which was getting out of control. Both tankers made a short stop at Fairbanks-International to settle customs affairs before going on to their temporary tanker base at Ft. Wainwright.

It doesn't show, but this immaculate Skymaster was delivered to the USAAF in June 1945 (as 45-507), which means that when this photo was taken, this beauty had just celebrated its 61st birthday. Roger Brooks purchased this former Arizona-based airtanker (ex Tanker 161) in February 2006. He used it to fly all kinds of freight out of its new homebase at Fairbanks, Alaska. Unfortunately it crashlanded near Nenana, AK on 17 January 2007. The wreck was stored at Nenana Airport and was still there by 2018.