Airports - March April 2015

FEATURE
LA PAZ
Old-timers
Parked piston engine aircraft on the grass near
the main apron are reminders of a time when
these classics came and went many times a
day. During the 1960s and 1970s, and even
into the 1980s, a colourful array of airlines
used piston engine types on cargo flights to
La Paz. Then, roads were poor and there were
hardly any trucks with a refrigeration system.
Fresh meat had to be flown from the farms
in Bolivia’s lowlands to La Paz. Many airlines
made good money with these meat hauling
flights across the Andes Mountains in what
were often poorly maintained aircraft. Today,
better roads and refrigerated trucks have made
such flights obsolete and just a few abandoned
aircraft remain at LPB as a reminder of those
glorious days. They include Convair C-131
CP-2026, Curtiss C-46s CP-1080 and CP-1655;
and ex-La Cumbre Douglas DC-6 CP-1282. All
are in pretty poor condition and will probably
be scrapped shortly.
Former
Transporte Aéreo
Militar (TAM)
Douglas C-47 TAM
01 is displayed in
front of the carrier’s
small terminal.
British Aerospace
146-200 CP-2634
(c/n E2096) is flown
on behalf of the
San Cristobal mine,
which runs a shuttle
service from La
Paz to the mine in
southwest Bolivia.
One of the Curtiss C-46s in storage at El Alto
is CP-1655. It is in much better shape than the
second example nearby.
Former La Cumbre Douglas DC-6 CP-1282,
slowly rotting away in the grass.
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