Reeve Aleutian Airlines   Lockheed L-188PF   Electra  N9744C          (c/n  1140)

                                 

                                      I flew in this aircraft many times when I worked for Western Airlines in the late 1950s.  However,
                                      I had to wait until it got to Coventry, UK in 2002 to see a photograph of it in Reeve Aleutian livery.
                                      WAL sold it to RAA in 1970 after conversion to a freighter.  After 30 years hard work it was sold
                                      to Air Atlantic in the UK who decided to cannibalize it for scrap.  Keith Blincow took this nice shot
                                      within hours after its arrival at Baginton in August 2002, and fortunately before bits and pieces of it
                                      started disappearing.   Reeve operated a total of six Electras in the period from 1968 to 1983. Three
                                      of' them were ex-Western machines.  Keith also provided me with the humorous shot (below) which
                                      I will reproduce, even though this is a serious dissertation on the histories of US airlines.  It appears
                                      that after about a year of the aircraft hanging around the Coventry scene some wag in the UK repaint-
                                      ed  it with somewhat sacrilegious titling.   It was also re-registered N2RK, by the way (but why?)