McDonald's Taupo Douglas DC-3 Poster

The McDonald’s restaurant in Taupo is dubbed the ‘world’s coolest McDonald’s’ for a very good reason. While the restaurant building itself isn’t too interesting, it’s what is featured on the property outside that makes it so awesome. As you can tell from the image (or from prior knowledge), there is an actual Douglas DC-3 airliner located next to the kids play area at the McDonald’s - and you can actually go in and dine inside of it. But, how did it get there? Well, there’s a plentiful history to this airframe, and it’s quite interesting.

To begin, let’s have a look at the plane itself. This particular Douglas DC-3 was built during the Second World War, specifically in 1943, and was delivered to the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) in mid-October that same year. Originally built a C-47A (the military version of the DC-3), it bears the manufacturer’s serial number 18923, and when she was in service with the United States military, it bore the Air Force serial number 41-100460. For most of its life, it has been located in the southwest Pacific, mainly Australia and of course New Zealand. It was used to support the Americans in the combats in the Pacific against the Japanese in places such as the Philippines and East Indies (now Indonesia), and some of the Pacific islands too. When WW2 ended in mid-late 1945, it was stored at an airfield in the Philippines and cancelled off of the USAAF registration. It was handed over to the United States Army for disposal. A year later, it was sold to Australian National Airways (Which would later merge with Ansett) and was registered as VH-ANM in early February 1947. It was sold to Queensland Airlines exactly 9 years later. It wore the Butler Air Transport livery too for a period of time. On 7 December 1958, it was sold to Ansett-ANA, and then passed down to Ansett-ANA subsidiary Airlines of New South Wales.

Across the ditch, South Pacific Airlines of New Zealand (SPANZ; they will be covered on future posts) was formed in 1960. In 1961, they had 2 aircraft and a third was needed. So, VH-ANM was purchased from Airlines of NSW in October 1961, entering service on the 28th of that month bearing the registration ZK-CAW. Sadly, SPANZ faced numerous issues, and so ZK-CAW was taken over by none other than NAC - National Airways Corporation; the leading domestic airline in Aotearoa. It entered service with NAC in March of 1966 wearing the NAC colours. Shortly afterwards, due to the arrival of the Fokker F.27 Friendships, it was leased to Fiji Airways Ltd. as VQ-FAI from 5 June 1966, and was returned to NZ as ZK-CAW 3 years later on 5 August 1969. That same month it was leased to Mount Cook Airlines for a little bit before being parked at Christchurch airport for quite a long time.

In the late 1970s, a startup airline called South Seas Airways applied for a license to operate charter flights with a Douglas DC-3 aircraft. And so they made an agreement to purchase ZK-CAW. Unfortunately, though the plane had been painted in South Seas Airways colours in October of 1970, the license was denied, but not before it was flown up to Palmerston North on the North Island of Aotearoa. Palmerston North was where the airline was to be based. On 7 May 1971, though, ownership of ZK-CAW passed to South Seas Airways. Almost immediately afterwards, however, on 13 May 1971, the plane was sold to aerial topdressing company Fieldair Ltd. for use as an agricultural aircraft. Work shortly afterwards commenced for the Palmerston North-based company to strip the interior and fit a hopper which was capable of holding up to 5 tons of superphosphate, which is a manufactured fertilizer. Following the completion of this work, its first flight as an agricultural aircraft took place on 22 November 1972. It was used as a top dresser for just about 12 years, in which time its ownership changed twice due to the structure of the company, not due to operational reasons. Its last flight as a top dresser took place on 30 March 1984, concluding nearly 12 years of agricultural work on the lower North island and East Coast.

In mid-May of 1985, it was sold to R J Harding of Wanganui (at the time Whanganui was spelt Wanganui and this continued until about 2015-2016 when it was changed which caused some controversy). The new owner wanted to make the plane airworthy again, but this was too costly, so he sold it to its new owners in Taupo where it was used as an advertisement sign in front of the Aeroplane Car Company.

Now here’s where McDonald’s comes in.

In 1990, McDonald’s System of New Zealand purchased the car yard along with the airliner so that they could transform it into the new Taupo McDonald’s restaurant, with the DC-3 staying there to make the location stand out a lot more from others. They gutted out the interior and made it so that you could dine inside the former airliner. It remains at the Taupo McDonald’s today, and it has made the Taupo location very famous and iconic, going as far as winning awards for the ‘World’s best McDonalds’.

ZK-CAW: 1943 Douglas C-47A-65-DL/Douglas DC-3 | McDonald’s Taupo | Currently: Preserved at McDonald’s Taupo as an extension to the dining area.

If you want an even more in depth history about this plane, then you can go to Taupo and read the information panels that are actually located onboard the DC-3.

…Or if you don’t want to do that, you can read them from home here: http://nzcivair.blog.../02/zk-caw.html

This is a wonderful blog that I highly recommend checking out

Oh, last thing! Did you know that the McDonald’ sin Taupo wasn’t the only McDonald’s to feature a DC-3 at the restaurant. Across the ditch in Adelaide, Australia, a McDonald’s restaurant purchased a former Trans Australia Airlines (TAA) DC-3. This aircraft wore the registration VH-AER, VH-EWF, and VH-EWE in its life, and operated for the following airlines:
TAA
East West Airlines
Connair
Fleet Air
IPEC
Banana Airlines (Yes that was a real airline and yes there was a banana depicted on the fuselage and yes it was yellow)
Setair

The plane also started life as a USAAF C-47, but it bore the serial number 41-18646. It was located in West Lakes and featured a McDonald’s livery on it too. I’m not sure if it’s still in West Lakes or not though. I found a VH-EWE DC-3 that is in the Central Australian Aviation Museum in Alice Springs painted in a Connair livery, but I’m unsure as to whether or not it is the same airframe.

Slang of the day: Maccas | Meaning: McDonald’s, but it’s how the Aussies and Kiwis referee to it (yay slang has made a comeback, but probably won’t return often as I have run out of slang )

(Not a sponsored post/advertisement for McDonald’s BTW (I wish I was getting paid lol), I’m just giving you the history of a cool airliner. Plus I wanted to do a DC-3 for Kiwiana anyway, so this was the perfect one to do!)

The reason it has these windows is because it was converted to a ‘viewmaster’ by Butler Air Transport in 1957, it was not done by Maccas.