They settled on flying aboard a DC-3.Joe McBryan - or Buffalo Joe as he's known - who founded the company in 1970, still flies the Hay River-Yellowknife route every morning. The company pulls in most of its revenue delivering cargo for the likes of UPS, FedEx and Canada Post - which mainly consists of pop, chips and fresh food for northern towns. The mining boom hasn't hurt Buffalo's bottom line either. "Uranium especially is going crazy up north right now," the younger Mr. McBryan says. But Buffalo Joe and the airline's 80-odd employees have no problem tolerating the tourists, even swapping tall tales. One of the best-known took place a few years back when the elder Mr. McBryan was transporting a planeload of rowdy hockey players. Unable to persuade the jocks to settle down, he flew into the thinner air at 14,000 feet. Pretty soon the lugs were all knocked out, or so the story goes.
Last year, Buffalo updated the fleet with the purchase of two Lockheed Electras, four-engine long-haulers rolled out the year John Diefenbaker became Prime Minister.
The elder Mr. McBryan has good reason for running to older aircraft. For starters, well-worn DC-3s occasionally hit the market for about $150,000. He can make his original investment back in six months. A 20-year-old de Havilland Twin Otter, by comparison, can cost up to $2-million.
Old planes were also designed before the age of computer refinement. As a result, they were overengineered. Slam a DC-3 down on a gravel strip or a frozen lake and she barely shudders.
"It was still the dawn of modern air transport when they were built," Mr. Pettersen says. "So they're built like a brick shithouse."
Even bulletproof engineering and eager fliers may not keep Buffalo's older planes soaring forever. The most pressing threat is a lack of fuel. While newer commercial planes run on kerosene-based jet fuel, most of Buffalo's fleet burns avgas.
"We are the only major burner in the North as far as I know," the younger Mr. McBryan says. "They truck it to Yellowknife for us, but who knows how long that'll keep up."
Should that day come, expect an aeronautical dustup the likes of which haven't been seen since Dief scrapped the Avro Arrow. The longer Buffalo resists buying new, the stronger its status as a national treasure becomes.
"Nobody is really flying planes like they are," Mr. Pettersen says. "The new stuff all seems sterile by comparison."
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Prophead hot spots
Planespotters scour every nook of the globe in search of vintage propeller-driven planes still plying the skies. Some of the choicest places in North America:
Opa-Locka, Fla. In the mid-1990s, Miami International Airport cleaned up its infamous Corrosion Corner, a parking lot for aging aircraft and legendary haunt of drug smugglers and gun runners. Many of the hulks now sit at Opa-Locka airport.
Fairbanks and Anchorage, Alaska. When a prop cargo plane has come to the end of its life in the Lower 48, it often ends up in Alaska, where several small operators fly DC-3s, DC-6s and Curtiss C-46s.
Abbotsford, B.C. Home of a world-famous air show, the airport is also headquarters for Conair, which maintains several old water bombers and a fleet of decrepit parts planes.
Redmond, Ore. A training centre for forest firefighting, this little airport holds all shapes of water-bombing planes.
Red Deere, Alta. Buffalo Airways parks some of its old birds here alongside bush planes servicing remote oil fields.
Patrick White
