THE OLDEST BOEING AIRLINER IN FLYING CONDITION: The four passengers are in two closed cabins, and the lone pilot is in an open cockpit -- maybe so the air will make him stay awake!

The airplane is in Spokane, WA and is the oldest airworthy Boeing in the World.

After eight years of repair and rebuilding and 8,000 hours of toil the Boeing 40C rolled out last winter as a finished airplane. They had to wait a few weeks for the snow to melt to fly this baby. They received their Standard Airworthiness Certificate from the FAA and completed the engine pre-oil and fuel flow tests for the first of the taxi tests.

Facts for the Boeing 40 project:

The airplane weighs 4,080 lbs empty and has a gross weight of 6,075 lbs.

It is 34 feet long and 13 feet tall with a wingspan of over 44 feet.

Wing loading is 10 lbs per sq ft and power loading is 10 lbs per HP.

The wings have 33,000 individual parts in them.

It should cruise at 115 mph using 28 GPH and 32 GPH at 120 mph.

It carries 120 gallons of fuel in three tanks.

Over 221 gallons of dope/reducer and 120 yards of 102 ceconite fabric; twelve gallons of polyurethane paint for the sheet metal; and three-hundred-and-fifty 2" brushes were used to apply six gallons of West Systems epoxy.

One-hundred-eighty-one rolls of paper towels were needed for cleanup.

There were a total of 62 volunteers who worked on the project to some degree. Twenty-one of the volunteers did a significant amount of the work and nine of the volunteers worked continuously during the eight-year project.

From my email.