@Lancaster Milestones of Flight Museum, Lancaster, CA
May 2006
Located at the General William J. Fox Airport in Lancaster is this sleepy aviation museum with a diverse collection of aircraft weathering in the desert climate. One interesting specimen is this Flying Boxcar. This aircraft was used by Hemet Valley Flying Service as a firefighting air tanker and had the Steward-Davis “Jet Pak” modification of a jet engine on top of the fusleage, allowing for higher payload capacity. The center console has a retrofitted throttle lever for the jet engine. After a series of crashes, the U.S. C-119 air tanker fleet was permanently grounded in 1987. The C-119 first flew in November 1947, and by the time production ceased in 1955, more than 1,100 C-119s had been built. Panasonic FZ30.
