Restoration Scene - Skymaster
It came to Britain to star in Candy Bomber, a film that was never made, but now an ambitious project aims to return a historic Douglas C-54 Skymaster to British skies. Charles Woodley outlines the plans and details the machine’s remarkable career
Any visitor to the historic airfield at North Weald in recent years will inevitably have had their eye drawn to one of the site’s largest and most celebrated residents: C-54Q Skymaster N44914.
The 1943-built, four-engined transport rolled out of the Douglas factory as a C-54D and was initially assigned to the USAAF as 42-72525 before transferring to the US Navy. It has survived a long and varied career, and was one of two flown to the Essex airfield in 2002 to appear in a film entitled Candy Bomber. Ultimately the movie was never made, and the aircraft – painted in a US military Air Transport Command livery with its former serial number 56498 – has remained at North Weald ever since.
