page_title: Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar
section_title: Civilian use
hierarchical_section_title: Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar / Operational history / Civilian use
caption_attribution_description: C-119C at the Milestones of Flight Museum, Lancaster California; previously operated as an air tanker by Hemet Valley Flying Service
context_page_description: The Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar was an American military transport aircraft developed from the World War II-era Fairchild C-82 Packet, designed to carry cargo, personnel, litter patients, and mechanized equipment, and to drop cargo and troops by parachute. The first C-119 made its initial flight in November 1947, and by the time production ceased in 1955, more than 1,100 C-119s had been built. Its cargo-hauling ability and unusual twin-boom design earned it the nickname "Flying Boxcar".
context_section_description: A number of aircraft were acquired by companies who were contracted by the United States Forest Service (USFS) and the Bureau of Land Management to provide airtankers for fighting wildfires. Others were pressed into civilian cargo service. After a series of crashes, the age and safety of the aircraft being used as airtankers became a serious concern, and the U.S. C-119 airtanker fleet was permanently grounded in 1987. Eventually, many of these aircraft were provided to museums across the U.S. in a complicated – and ultimately illegal – scheme where stored USAF Lockheed C-130 Hercules transports and Navy Lockheed P-3 Orion anti-submarine patrol aircraft were provided to the contractors in exchange for the C-119s. (See U.S. Forest Service airtanker scandal.) After the end of the airtanker days, many C-119s flew in Alaska for Northern Pacific Transport, Gifford Aviation, Stebbins & Ambler Air transport, and Delta Associates, being used for public service contracts, such as hauling building materials to the villages in the bush of Alaska that have no road access.
  Several aircraft were observed, as late as 1990, by paratroopers with the 6th Infantry Division, to be in Forest Service use as jump planes for "smokejumper" firefighters in Alaska.  These aircraft were boarded and toured, by the Army paratroopers, at Ft Wainwright, Alaska.
caption: C-119C shown in Hemet Valley Flying Service livery as Tanker 82 before being retired; now at the Milestones of Flight Museum in Lancaster California. (note the jet pod above the fuselage).
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