Air Services, Inc  Curtiss C-46  N4879V                        (c/n  22453)

                                  

                                       Air Services, Inc was a Newark, New Jersey based non-sked which operated cargo and passenger
                                      charter operations from 1953-1955 using DC-3s and C-46s.  Bill Larkins' photo (above) was taken
                                      at Oakland on 13 August 1953, possibly as it was being acquired by Air Services from US Airlines,
                                      Inc.  The aircraft carried the normal period minuscule  registration (done in stencil script, see below).
                                      The ex C-46F-1-CU (44-78630) had been civilianized in in 1946 for China's Central Air Transport
                                      Corporation as XT-526.  When first entered onto the US Civil Register it was as N8311C for the
                                      covert Civil Air Transport.   It later went backjward and forwards across the border to Canada
                                      first as CF-CZM and later as C-GIXZ, having had a couple more US registrations in between.
                                      It was damaged beyond repair at Shamattawa, Manitoba on 31 Octoiber 1982 while flying for
                                      Ilford Riverton Airways.