Vintage DC-3 gets help from GTCC Students
The last sighting of Piedmont Airlines' "Potomac Pacemaker" was April 2004. It was in three parts flying down Interstate 85/40 on the back of three trucks bound for Spencer.
The 61-foot, 24-seat DC-3 aircraft was one of the earliest to fly Piedmont's blue colors. The airline was founded in Winston-Salem in 1948, and until it merged with United Airlines in the 1980s, enjoyed a reputation for reliability and had a loyal following of travelers.
Parts of the Potomic Pacemaker are now in Greensboro, at Guilford Technical Community College's Aviation Center at Piedmont Triad International Airport.
GTCC's aviation students, under instructor Larry Belton, have been assigned to reupholster with fabric the planes "control services" - the ailerons, the elevators and the rudder. The ailerons made it possible for the plane to roll left or right; the elevators made it go up and down and the rudder stirred it.
The students are part of a project at the N.C. Transportation Museum in Spencer to restore the old piston-drive plane to pristine condition.
But don't plan to book passage.
The plane will never fly again. Instead it will either hang from the rafters or be placed on the floor of the museum's Back Shop. The Back Shop was built in 1905 to repair Southern Railway steam engines. The museum occupies the railroad's old repair shops, which were located midway on Southern's main line between Washington and Atlanta.
Once fully restored in 2006, the Back Shop will be the museum's biggest display building. The Potomic Pacemaker will be the biggest item on display.
Until it was brought to Spencer, the plane was parked for years at the Museum of Life and Science in Durham.
Most of the plane's restoration is being done in the Back Shop, under the supervision of a committee, which includes a mechanic who worked on the plane and a Piedmont pilot who flew DC-3s.
DC-3s hauled troops and supplies and dropped paratroopers during World War II. After the war, DC-3s crissrossed America as commercial airliners.
The Potomac Pacemaker and Piedmont's other DC-3s were retired in 1963, but a few other airliners flew them awhile longer. Wright Airlines, a regional carrier in the Midwest, still had DC-3s flying between Detroit and Cleveland as late as 1980.
Only a few survive but "we still see some float in and out of the airport as cargo haulers," Belton says. "A DC-3 can carry a tremendous amount of cargo."
He says the control systems of the plane were covered with fabric to protect the metal and reduce maintenance. Aircraft Spruce & Specialty Co. in Georgia still supplies fabric and parts to the airline industry.The company donated nearly $3,000 worth of fabric for the GTCC students to use on the Potomic Pacemaker.
Belton says students from various classes in the aviation program will be working on the project throughout the new school year.
