California Air Freight  Curtiss C-46  N9473Z                        (c/n  22293)

                                    

                                              Barely visible in black on the red cheat line on the aft fuselage is the registration of this C-46,
                                              photographed by Bill Larkins at Oakland in 1952.       I have little or no data regarding the
                                              operation of this small company, except that it ran charter cargo operations out of Oakland,
                                              CA..     This aircraft, an ex C-46D-20-CU (44-78470) may, in fact, have been its only one.
                                              It was sold to Circle Airways in 1959 and then went on to serve with Bird & Sons on covert
                                              CIA missions out of Vientiane, Laos in the mid-1960s.  In 1965 it was taken over by the CIA-
                                              run airline Continental Air Services Inc (CASI) .  The old bird was officially cited as having
                                              crashed landed (basically shot down by enemy fire) at Phu Cum, Laos on 13 August 1967.