Mercury's only Dakota, based at Ringway, awaits passengers for schedule MI100 bound for Sandown (Isle of Wight) at 0845. It will be back in 3 hours 30 minutes and will perform another trip, interspersed with a return flight IOW to Leeds Yeadon, before ending back at Ringway at 2030. A 1500-mile itinerary for the day - not bad for a wartime-built old transport. It is refuelling from a Shell-BP tanker before the underground fuel pipes were commissioned.

Ex RAF Dakota 4 KN620 serving in the Far East. Bought by Manx Airlines in April 1953 and crashed near Dusseldorf on 22 December 1955.

Ex KN442. Newly delivered from 12 MU to Speke for Starways, still wearing deleted RAF roundels and fin flash. Overhauled and sold in early 1953 to the first of a subsequent myriad of European airlines. Still extant.

Ex RAF KK136. Served Dan-Air from March 1961 until registration cancelled in February 1971.

Operated by Fairey Surveys from October 1950 until May 1976. Parked outside their 1937-built hangar at Ringway, now also bearing the insignia of Britten-Norman.

Ex RAF KN595. Served Cambrian Airways from May 1960 until April 1969. To 5B-CBB.

This C-47B has served with the RCAF since 1946. It became an instructional airframe in 1959 with serial 655B. To the Rockcliffe Museum in 1964.

Although reportedly some parts of the real G-AMSU were used in the preparation of this Dak for display, it was really G-AMPP which served Dan-Air between 1961 and 1971 after an RAF career. The aircraft was removed to France in 1991, then to the Netherlands in 2002. Finally it went to Berlin in 2005, to be used for the making of a film about the Airlift, to represent crashed Dakota KN491, which went down on 24 Jan 1949 in East Germany while approaching Lübeck-Blankensee. When filming was completed, the remains of the aircraft went to Olawa, Poland.

Damaged in a landing accident at Townsville (YBTL) on September 5, 1971.