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Big Weathervane
Thu Nov 20, 2003
Listen in RealAudio 
Hi, I’m Bryan Yeaton for The Weather Notebook. Correspondent Amy Mayer found an interesting
use for a retired airplane, outside the Whitehorse International Airport in Canada’s Yukon
Territory.
It’s a Douglas DC-3, once considered the "Model T of the Skies." Today it’s the world’s
largest weather vane. Peter Jickling works at the Yukon Transportation Museum.
PJ: There were some very creative airplane buffs who decided that as opposed to just having it
sit in a scrap metal yard that they would fix it up and do something interesting with it. So
they put it atop a pedestal.
Its nose always points into the wind… except when it was off its pedestal for cleaning. During
those three years, Jickling took visitors to see it in a museum hangar.
PJ: You’d get these old timers that would come in and just have these incredible stories of
DC-3s that they’d flown on in any number of wars and stuff like that. So it was really neat…
that’s why I’ve got so much respect now for not just the weather vane but the DC-3 in
general.
Travelers don’t always understand the plane’s new function.
PJ: There’s funny stories about people who get off the plane in between plane trips in
Whitehorse and head quickly over to the bar for a few drinks and they’ll go into the bar with
it facing one way and they’ll come out of the bar with it facing the other way and they’ll
wonder how many they actually had when they were in there.
The weather vane is 64 feet, 5.5 inches long with a wingspan of 95 feet. In Whitehorse, Yukon
Territory, I’m Amy Mayer.
The Weather Notebook is supported by The National Science Foundation, and Subaru of America.
Today's Links
Pictures:
http://www.jetphotos.net/showphotos.php?location=Whitehorse%20International%20Airport%20-%20(C
YXY
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