The VT-CGP mystery

11/2/2017

How about an aircraft with no owner? Mysterious. Here is a picture of a DC-3 in Air-India International livery registered as VT-CGP. Just to spice things even more, here is one more photograph of the same aircraft below.

There is a note on the reverse of one of the photographs that records the plane as a Douglas DC-3 airplane VT-CGP, c/n 12928 (ex-42-108908) at London Airport in Air-India International livery, Silver, white, red, black. Picture taken on 24 March 1956. Now, I have checked the airlines web-site, lists maintained by Jeffrey Brown, airwhiners.net, and Warbirds of India, civilian registry, but could not come up with anything meaningful. The other question is, what was Air-india International doing with a DC-3 in London?

Mysterious! would appreciate if someone would research this and enlighten us.

1 Comment

Anandeep

18/11/2020 03:42:32

The Dakota was a spares/engine ferry airplane for the Super Constellation fleet. The Super Constellation had a reputation for having engine failures - which was somewhat deserved. The Wright 3350 Turbo Compounds were the pinnacle of piston engine technology and stressed their components to the maximum to get their rated power output, and their failure rate was orders of magnitude more than jet engines. The Dakota could rapidly fly to where the Air India aircraft was AOG and replace engines so service could be resumed with minimum delay. London was the furthest they went in the Dakota.

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