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A new page about Golden Isles, a St. Simons Island based airline that flew de Havilland Doves to 11 cities in Florida and Georgia during 1960.   Nearly 50 incredible photos from the LIFE archives of Eastern DC-3s flying from Miami to Boston and points in between. These are among the best DC-3 photos I've ever seen, everything from in-flight shots, cockpit views, and photos of terminals, ticket counters and the employees that made Eastern one of the greatest airlines of its time. There are so many that I divided them into 2 pages. I was so immersed, it felt like time travel! PART ONE: Florida PART TWO: Atlanta, Greenville, Charlotte, Washington, Newark and points in between. Just added this amazing glimpse of history to the Early years of Atlanta Airport page: a full color home movie taken from the observation deck at Atlanta airport in summer 1938 showing the arrivals and departures of Eastern Air Lines DC-2s and DC-3s. Added a timetable from June 1, 1980 to the Red Carpet Airlines page. Thanks to Don Henchel for sending this in.
Added a new DC-3 photo to the Vintage Airways page as well as larger versions of brochures advertising their DC-3 nostalgia flights.
A new page about Coastal Airlines, a commuter airline that operated B-99s in Florida and the Bahamas during 1967-1969. Thanks to Don Henchel for the timetable scans! Don sent a treasure trove of rare items that will appear on the site this week, 
New on the Sunshine Skies website: You'll notice at the bottom of every page there is a link to the Buffalo Airwear store. Buffalo Airways operates a time-warp fleet of DC-4s, L-188 Electras, C-46s, CL-215s and the last scheduled DC-3 passenger flights in the world. I'm generally not a big fan of ads but this may be the coolest airline on Earth. Lots of great merchandise: DC-3 shirts, Ice Pilots DVDs, etc. Click the links and support these ancient "propliners"! Here's a trailer for season 5 of the Ice Pilots NWT reality TV show. Added 2 new photos on the Naples Airlines page. This post was a long time coming! I vividly remember sitting in my elementary school library, ten years old, thumbing through an issue of Flying Magazine when I came across the most amazing photo of a Naples Airlines DC-3 at treetop level. That photo stuck in my head for over 35 years. About a year ago I finally decided to figure out what issue I had seen; it was July 1978. I easily found it on eBay and at long last here it is along with another photo from the same article. Enjoy...  It has been particularly difficult to find photos of Key Largo's long closed Port Largo Airport. Luckily for us, Clayton Peters sent photos of the airport from February 1984. I also added another aerial view from the Florida Keys Public Libraries archives. Check it out HERE.  OK, excuse the corny title. I received a lot of emails from visitors to the website as well as Facebook messages this past week (all very much appreciated!) and wanted to share a few highlights: DC-3 N28AA Ron Alexander, owner of DC-3 N28AA, sent in these fantastic photos of his aircraft. Ron wrote: "These were taken at the Triple Tree fly-in in South Carolina. Taken from a control tower. I can’t think of the person’s name who took them. I believe it was Jim Boyd." The last photo is credited to Scott Thomason. 
 Former Delta hangars at Lenora Paul Talbott, a Delta retiree and volunteer in the Delta archives since the 1970s, wrote in regards to former ATL hangars at Lenora Airport in Gwinnett County, GA. Paul is also one of 3 retirees who operate the 737 full motion simulator in the Delta Flight Museum. "Enjoyed looking at your web site, especially the images of the old Delta hangars. To answer your question about the last hangar with no walls and the windsock (color photo below), I don't believe this was ever used by Delta during WWII for military mod work. I volunteer in the Delta archives and have seen quite a few photos of the old hangars behind the G.O where the work was done, but have never seen this hangar used for mod work. I have attached a rather poor image of a Delta hangar in Atlanta that was in use sometime during the period of 1935-42, when we operated the Lockheed Model 10 Electra. Could this possibly be the same hangar??"  Here's the photo (sent in by Robert Brown) that Paul was referring to.  Paul Talbott also sent in this information: The 1938 aerial image of the Blevins hangar (on this page and re-posted below) shows 4 planes on the ramp. The biplane between the two Taylor model J-2 Cubs is a Waco model GXE.  Key West, 1989 Andy Rodriguez, who is largely responsible for the Comair page, sent in this photo of an Eastern Express / Bar Harbor Beech 1900 at Key West in 1989. Andy wrote: "I recently came across this photo I had of when my Army Reserve unit sent me for weekend training in Key West. It’s a Beech 1900, we used to fly MCO-MIA-EYW, and in Miami sometimes it was either a Beech 1900, a Jetstream 31 or a DC-3. Good times!"  Thanks again to everyone who wrote this week! I may turn this into a weekly post.
Lots O' Goodies: Skybus Express, Air Florida Commuter, Southern International, Florida Air Lines3/9/2015 An unusual "coat of arms" Nomad sticker added to the Skybus Express page.  Timetable added to the Air Florida Commuter page.
Timetable added to the Southern International Airways page. SIA was the name of the reorganized Florida Air Lines. Not so coincidentally, I added an August 1969 timetable cover with route map to the Florida Air Lines page.
Added new material to the pages of these two Atlanta-based commuter airlines. Added a complete circa 1982 timetable to the Atlanta Express page and a large Twin Otter photo, 1979 route map and Twin Otter diagram to the ASA page.
Today's updates focus on two competing airlines that flew between Miami and the Florida Keys during the mid 1970s. Both sides of a September 1975 timetable were added to the Southeast Airlines page and a route map from 1974 was added to the Air Sunshine page.
Added route maps to the Southern Airways and Southern Express pages.  Southern Airways route map dated April 1, 1970.  Southern Express route map from May 11, 1985. Thanks for the great response to the new website! I've received quite a bit of feedback from readers and there have been several thousand page views in the past 3 days. Now that the basic framework of the website is in place, I'll finally have time to start posting more reader contributions and go through the boxes of eBay goodies that have amassed during the past year. Lots of cool stuff on the way. - David 
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UpdatesThe latest news and additions to the Sunshine Skies website. Archives
July 2023
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If you would like to contribute photos, scans, stories or additional information about any of the airlines, airports or aircraft on this site, please contact me, David Henderson, using the mail icon above. Help preserve the colorful history of aviation in Florida and Georgia!