What makes a large passenger airliner in downtown New York

It has long been known that you can meet anything in Times Square, so I was not at all surprised to learn that an airplane would be brought there on the weekend. Yes, not some little Cessna, but a huge turboprop passenger Lockheed Constellation 1958 release. The car is rare, which is already unrealistic to see in the sky, so I went there before work to take a couple of pictures.

The old Lockheed Constellation, or Connie, as the aviators affectionately call him, got into the center of New York for a reason. He was brought there on the way from Maine to JFK Airport, where he will become part of the new hotel, which was equipped in the building of the old TWA terminal, built in 1962 according to the project of the American architect of Finnish origin Eero Saarinen. A great project that will breathe new life into an incredibly beautiful and unique historical building, which for many years stood completely empty. Actually, the Lockheed Constellation airliner, which will be installed on the site next to the terminal and turned into a cocktail bar for 110 people, was part of the idea of the new hotel. They write that it will be possible to sit even in the pilot's seat and press the buttons, and the waiters will be dressed in TWA uniforms, so visitors will have the full feeling that they were in 1958. The presentation of the aircraft in Times Square has become a promotional campaign to promote the hotel, which will open its doors to the first guests on May 15th.

Before getting to New York, Connie lived a long and eventful life. He began his career as a TWA passenger liner in 1958. This was the last year of the release of this model, since the jet market was actively captured by jet liners, and almost two years later the handsome four-screw handsome man was removed from the passenger route and converted into a cargo plane. After working as such for another two years, he ended up in Alaska, where he became the so-called bush plane and was involved in the delivery of goods to the area of Pradkho Bay. After five years of work in the north, Connie, like all other TWA screw airliners, was decommissioned and joked at the outskirts of the Alaskan airport. In 1979, it was bought at an auction by a new owner, who cost the liner a ridiculous amount, even at that time, of $ 150. The plane was restored and surrendered to Arizona, where he began a new and not entirely law-abiding career.

In 1986, another owner found, bought and transported what was left of the dying airliner to Florida, and then transported it by sea to Maine, which is located on the other side of the country. There Connie put on another joke near the owner's house. In 2007, Lufthansa bought three Lockheed Constellations in order to assemble one fully functioning copy from them. An airplane from Times Square became a donor for the future flying fellow. They removed everything of value for the summer restoration, and sold what was left to New York.

In Maine, the fuselage was restored and painted in the colors of TWA livery, returning to the airliner a long-lost look. That is, this is not a plane ruined by an eccentric hotelier, but the preserved remains of an airliner that were given a new life. And this is one of only four surviving Lockheed Constellation in the modification of the L-1649 Starliner. The second is just restoring the Lufthansa. The third is located in the largest private aviation collection in the world, Fantasy of Flight in Florida, and the fourth is at O. R. Tambo International Airport near Johannesburg in South Africa.