This long term resident finally gets some attention, the plane looks horrible. One year ago it was a shiny plane wearing the new colours of Mexicana, times are changing rapidly...

Into position and hold on runway 09L.

A genuine pre-WWII civilian DC-3 delivered to TWA in April 1939 as NC14931 and served with them until February 1952. It subsequently passed thought the hands of numerous operators and was last active flying out of Laredo, TX., as XA-KTB with Aero JBR, but had been withdrawn and stored by 2008. The deteriorating aircraft was acquired by the Fourrier Foundation in 2018 and moved from Laredo to San Antonio, TX., where they planned to restored it to airworthiness and use it for humanitarian relief flights in South America and Africa, although there have been no recent reports of their progress.

The aircraft is a Franklin Gander conversion with 260hp IO-470 Continental engines. It spent many years in Alaska as N28676 & N85U where it was wrecked/sunk several times. It has a modified nose cap, G-44A bow, no 2nd step aft, McKinnon retractable floats and a fairing behind the main wheel wells. It was re-registered N144SL in October 2018 and sold to a new owner in New Zealand and was last noted dismantled at Ardmore Airport, North Island, awaiting restoration in March 2022. (Credit: Bill O Bailey for much of the above).

Later restored to standard tricycle undercarriage configuration, but cancelled from the USCAR on 30th May 2018 due to the expiration of the aircraft's registration certificate.