Dakota transports them back (From York Press)

Dakota transports them back

9:51am Friday 10th February 2012 in Features

General Eisenhower called the Dakota one of the war effort’s most vital components. As the Yorkshire Air Museum is set to complete restoration of its own example, MATT CLARK went to meet some of the men behind the project.

GRANT Sparks has two women in his life; his wife and a grand old lady who lives just down the road in Elvington.

His second love is a plane, a Dakota transport plane to be precise, and Grant has been looking after her since he joined the Yorkshire Air Museum. Now, after a decade, restoration work is almost complete and the old girl is finally about to fire up her engines again.

Grant worked on jets during his 23 years with the RAF, but this is the first time he’s sullied his hands on props.

“Essentially, all aircraft are similar and to be part of a project like this has been fantastic,” he says. “It takes over your life and now my wife doesn’t get any jobs done whatsoever.”

Grant says it’s like a full-time job but without the pay. At least he gets free tea.

“This is like having your own man-shed, but with bigger toys to play with and no one can come and get you like in your own shed.”

The Dakota arrived at the Yorkshire Air Museum in 2001 after director Ian Reid spotted an article offering it to a good home. It was a wreck, the floors were out and instruments stripped, there were no engines and only one wing.

Two scrap engines and a replacement wing were hastily found in Kent to make the plane look the part, but for nine years, nothing more than cosmetic work was done.

Then a more ambitious project began. The museum bought a couple of new engines and two reconditioned propellers which allowed volunteers led by George Astley to bring the plane back to life.

“We’ve restored the cockpit instrumentation and the aircraft is now live with its own internal batteries or by ground power,” says Grant. “We’ve recently had the RPM gauges running by using a drill to make sure they work and the propellers turning on their own starters. That was exciting.”

Two years of hard work culminated in a new paint job which Andre Tempest, owner of the Museum’s Victor tanker, painstakingly completed with a tiny roller.

Like Spitfires and Lancasters, the Dakota is an iconic wartime plane, a breed apart, one that attracts hordes of admirers.

“I’ve seen Dakotas in action at air shows and the noise is really evocative when they burst into life with clouds of smoke,” Grant says.

With the trials over, the next stage is to oil the engines, fill the fuel tanks and fire up the plane, hopefully in time for Thunder Day on April 1.

And it will be a milestone: the first wartime propeller to turn at the Yorkshire Air Museum. Until now all the ground runs have involved jets.

The Dakota is a military version of the DC-3 Skyliner which first flew in 1935 and was used extensively in the United States. Not surprisingly, the United States Army Air Command saw potential for it to be turned into a transport aircraft during the Second World War.

Codenamed C-47, it was used widely by the Allies and under a lease-lend programme, 2,000 entered RAF service to revitalise its transport fleet. The RAF coined the name Dakota from Douglas Aircraft Company Transport Aircraft. It proved to be a master of all trades, dropping paratroopers at Arnhem, carrying troops and freight, towing gliders and evacuating casualties.

The aircraft also served with distinction in Burma and during the D-Day landings. Indeed, the aircraft played such a key role in the war effort that General Eisenhower wrote, “Most senior officers regard as the most vital to our success... the bulldozer, the jeep, the two and a half ton truck, and the C-47”.

Graham Sharpe has been part of the team restoring the Elvington example from the outset.

“For the last couple of years we’ve been putting the systems back and learning how to refuel it. It’s designed to fly and has four fuel tanks, but we will only use it for ground runs and only need one tank, so we’ve had to redesign the fuel system.”

Some argue that a restored aircraft can never be like the original, but Graham says that is to completely miss the point.

“Having new parts doesn’t matter at all. If the aircraft was flying today it would have new parts, because they need to be up to the job.”

Using period wiring looms would only produce a museum piece, but like all the wartime aircraft at Elvington, the Dakota has been brought back to life. And that, says Graham, is the real point.

“This is as much a memorial to wartime crews as it is a restored exhibit and that’s why it needs to be alive rather than static. People need to see, hear and smell these aircraft.”

At the end of the war, thousands of C-47s were converted back to civilian use and they became the airliner of choice around the world. It was only when jet aircraft made air travel faster and more convenient, that the Dakota was retired after decades of dominating the skies.

And with so many scrapped, finding spares in the US is not that tricky, if you know where to look.

Brian Watmough has a ferret on his family crest, which is quite appropriate really because he has spent years seeking out parts for the plane.

“I was on the scrounge in every museum I went to and if they had what we needed they would gladly give it,” says Brian. “That’s what restorers do. If we have an excess of something we’ll also trade, that’s why we never throw anything away.”

Just as well, YAM is a charity and often has to make do and mend.

One way is by developing a close relationship with local firms, many of whom are glad to make a new part for nothing when they hear about the project.

“We can do the majority of the fitting,” says Brian. “But if we need a new part we have to get it made, or go out scrounging.”

One of the Dakota’s pilots spotted his old plane on a recent visit to the museum. He used to fly flowers to Jersey and the restoration team hopes he will be back to see the engine fired up for the first time in years.

“Every day it gets a little bit closer,” says Graham.

“This has been a quiet satisfaction for us and you know one day it’s going to spring to life.

“There is nothing like the sound of a Second World War piston engine firing up. It sends a real tingle through you.”