The Provider
Pervez's recent reference to a 747 Jumbo masquerading as a hostel in Sweden prompted this week's Saturday Timewatch post.
Photographed in 2007, this is El Avion Restaurant in Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica. The proprietors bought the aircraft seven years earlier for $3,000. As far as I know it still houses a successful business today. However, that is barely half the story!
The aircraft, registration N62781, is a Fairchild C-123 Provider. Her sister ship was shot down in 1986 over Nicaragua. The fallout from that incident developed into one of the biggest scandals in American political history known as the Iran-Contra Affair. Anyone remember Oliver North?
Anyways, the C-123 in the above photo was the second of two purchased by the CIA. After the successful Sandinista strike, this surviving aircraft was simply abandoned at San Jose International Airport, Costa Rica. Following the purchase by the restaurant company, the plane was disassembled and shipped in pieces to where it currently stands. However, the fuselage was too wide for the local railroad bridges so had to be delivered by an ocean ferry. The last part of the route meant hauling seven sections up a Manuel Antonio hill to the final cliff-side resting-place!
The Provider
Pervez's recent reference to a 747 Jumbo masquerading as a hostel in Sweden prompted this week's Saturday Timewatch post.
Photographed in 2007, this is El Avion Restaurant in Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica. The proprietors bought the aircraft seven years earlier for $3,000. As far as I know it still houses a successful business today. However, that is barely half the story!
The aircraft, registration N62781, is a Fairchild C-123 Provider. Her sister ship was shot down in 1986 over Nicaragua. The fallout from that incident developed into one of the biggest scandals in American political history known as the Iran-Contra Affair. Anyone remember Oliver North?
Anyways, the C-123 in the above photo was the second of two purchased by the CIA. After the successful Sandinista strike, this surviving aircraft was simply abandoned at San Jose International Airport, Costa Rica. Following the purchase by the restaurant company, the plane was disassembled and shipped in pieces to where it currently stands. However, the fuselage was too wide for the local railroad bridges so had to be delivered by an ocean ferry. The last part of the route meant hauling seven sections up a Manuel Antonio hill to the final cliff-side resting-place!