Thursday, February 28, 2013

The Last Flight Of Coke Darden's Douglas Dolphin

Ladies and gentlemen, meet the Douglas Dolphin!  I found the below video on YouTube some time ago and can't believe I hadn't posted it sooner.  Anyway, the plane in this video belonged to a man named Coke Darden (a surefire protagonist's name if I've ever heard one), and now resides at the Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, FL, where it was ultimately retired.

The video provides an extremely rare opportunity to hear and see an actual Douglas Dolphin in flight - the same aircraft flown by Jack Halloway in The Missionary Position - from the interior of the cabin.  Filmed in 1998, the video reflects the quality of the cameras in use back then, but it still provides a good sense of what it was like to be in the Dolphin when landing and taking off from water, the sounds of the hydraulics at work as the gear was retracted and lowered, and the roar of its twin engines when the Dolphin took flight.

A beautiful spectacle to behold if you're into that sort of thing.  So, without further ado, may I present to you "The Last Flight of Coke Darden's Douglas Dolphin."




P.S.:  Many thanks to w4joy for posting and keeping this video going on YouTube!