I flew in a DC 3 in 1984 when I was driving MCI tour buses in the Yukon and Alaska. MCIs are the land cruiser of the bus world, all others fall apart after any amount of time in the North. Anyways, I managed to get invited on a few training runs as Air North was going to use this bird to do tourist runs from Whitehorse to Anchorage. Not a good idea to mix flight attendant training with pilot training. The two young flight attendents were air sick in 10 minutes. A friend and I were the dummy passengers they were supposed to be taking care of. Turn out the other way around. Anyways, I was amazed at the tight turns the DC3 could handle. I was not that impressed with the seats - thin aluminum tubes chairs with two foam pads tied on to them. The torque on those radial engines were also amazing. You could really feel it when the pilot feathered one prop and slammed the power to the other engine. Just think guys, you could have this bird for less than the price of a new 200 series LC.
However, 100 Gal/hr fuel and another gal/hr oil at todays prices would make it very expensive to operate.
Perhaps that is why she's not selling as a working aircraft.
As for the beaver, they are a brute of a plane but very loud. My uncle and his partner had a few of them in his fleet of aicraft at Ptarmigan. I remember once having a boat motor break down and having to leave my grandfather to hitch back to Yellowknife. My uncle and I grabbed on eof the beavers and flew on the step all the way up the river looking for my grandfather. IMO. flying a couple feet off the water up a winding river is better than any amusement park ride. The real workhorse and main stay of the Ptarmigan bush fleet in the NWT was their Twin Otters. These planes could go anywhere and be made to haul just about anything.
