TIGHAR
Historic Aircraft Recovery and Preservation => General discussion => Topic started by: Andrew M McKenna on October 21, 2020, 12:48:37 PM
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Interesting article about the first flight to Easter Island in 1951 from Santiago Chile.
http://islandheritage.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/RNJ_25_1_Maddock.pdf (http://islandheritage.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/RNJ_25_1_Maddock.pdf)
2300 miles, 19 hours, 20 minutes. Does sound familiar.
Doesn't say anything about how they navigated, or what tools they used, but it must have been a bit of a challenge. Virtually no alternate landing spots, at least they were flying a PBY-5A
The aircraft was subsequently destroyed in a 1961 training accident, but is represented by another PBY in a Chilean Museum that has quite a collection.
http://www.museoaeronautico.gob.cl/home/colecciones/aeronaves (http://www.museoaeronautico.gob.cl/home/colecciones/aeronaves)
Photo of the PBY on display is here https://sites.google.com/a/dgac.gob.cl/galerias-museo/colecciones/aeronaves/large/16.jpg (https://sites.google.com/a/dgac.gob.cl/galerias-museo/colecciones/aeronaves/large/16.jpg)
As an aside, despite the article saying that DC6s were replace by Boeing 707s in 1971, I and my family flew to Easter Island in a B-707 in December of 1970, a trip organized for us by Lindblad Travel of NY. At the time there were no hotels on Easter Island, so we stayed with a local family. I don't remember any other tourists there at the time, and we were allowed to explore all the various archaeological sites at our pleasure, sites that are now off limits to virtually all visitors. Was an unusual and memorable trip.
Andrew