AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2019 - 60

THE FORLORN DC-3 sits on the ramp at a Montreal airport, missing

its hamburger door-so named because if someone exited it with
the left engine running, they would become hamburger-and both
engines, among other components (right). The fact that CF-DTD's
skins aren't cut perfectly straight (center right) shows they were
trimmed by hand during World War II, said "Buffalo" Joe McBryan.
Mikey McBryan poses with the historic aircraft after its first flight in
nearly 30 years (far right). Before that flight, volunteers troubleshoot the left engine (bottom right).

60 | AOPA PILOT August 2019

"Just showing up with a sea
crate in the middle of a place
we've never been...do you
know how naive that is?"
-Mikey McBryan

and was featured in the popular Ice Pilots
NWT reality television series-perhaps
the only organization in the world with
the talent-and DC-3 parts inventory-to
pull it off.
Built as a C-47 by Douglas Aircraft
Company at its Midwest City, Oklahoma,
plant during January 1944, this airplane
was one of 108 Royal Canadian Air Force
transports launched late on June 5, 1944, to
drop paratroopers-and a dozen 20-pound
bombs, apparently-over Normandy in the
opening hours of the D-Day invasion. After
World War II it was converted to a DC-3C
by Canadair; operated by Trans-Canada Air
Lines; and from the 1970s until the late '80s
flew for Transport Canada as C-FDTD. A
couple of efforts to preserve the historic aircraft faltered, and since the early 1990s it

has languished at Montréal Saint-Hubert
Airport in Longueuil, Quebec.
"Just showing up with a sea crate [a
40-foot shipping container filled with DC-3
parts] in the middle of a place we've never
been, on an abandoned taxiway-do you
know how naive that is?" asked McBryan,
who named the project Plane Savers. "It
was organic. This wasn't something that we
planned, so every little thing was a bonus."
And he documented every step of
the process, in 156 video episodes on his
YouTube channel. His YouTube following
grew from 750 to more than 35,000; by the
second month, videos logged more than
75,000 views in their first 24 hours.
It started with just McBryan; his girlfriend, Stella Heidorn; and his uncle,
Ronny McBryan, an experienced Buffalo
mechanic. They had come out in January
to assess the project, then returned in early
April. "I took a really good inventory of
what was missing. I only missed two little
things," Ronny McBryan said. "It's amazing for an aircraft that almost went to the
scrapyard." The project ended with about
60 volunteers, including a core of 20-some
working almost every day on the project.
C-FDTD. DTD. Dare to dream.

MIKEY MCBRYAN

And there's a crisis. The arrow on a new
decal with emergency opening instructions for the airstair door points the wrong
way, contrary to the Canadian Aviation
Regulations, rendering the aircraft unairworthy. A heated discussion ensues. How
could this happen? It's too late to make a
new decal. Can the arrow be reversed with
Sharpie markers? Stella Heidorn, who
applied the decal, steps forward and rips it
off the door. Beneath it, the faded but legible original placard points in the correct
direction. Problem solved.
Last December, and sight unseen,
Mikey McBryan bought this DC-3 two time
zones and more than 1,700 nautical miles
from his base in Yellowknife, in Canada's
Northwest Territories. He decided to revive
the neglected warbird on an aggressive
schedule, planning its first flight in nearly
30 years for the seventy-fifth anniversary of
D-Day on June 6.
Why? To preserve an important part
of Canadian aviation history, he said, and
because he believed he could pull it off.
McBryan is general manager of Buffalo
Airways-yes, the Buffalo Airways that
operates DC-3s and other vintage transport aircraft in the Northwest Territories

AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2019