Mojave Dakota

Yes, that really is snow in Mojave! This is probably the hangar now occupied
by XCOR Aerospace, one of the New Space rocket-development companies
that now call the Mojave Spaceport "home".

No, Mojave isn't in the Dakotas, the Dakota is in Mojave. Since we've featured posts about the DC-1 and a DC-2, it seemed natural for this mid-week update to feature the final version of the Gooney Bird, the "Super DC-3". Unfortunately for Douglas, this upgrade of the tried-and-true was not a good seller commercially, but the Navy did have 100 of its R4D Dakotas upgraded to the R4D-8, with the Super DC-3 tail.

This rare photo is from the Mojave Transportation Museum archives, and originally came from GySgt B.M. Rebenstorf via Cathy Hansen. Because MCAAS Mojave was a training base associated with MCAS El Toro, there was frequent need for shuttle flights between the two bases, and so Mojave had an R4D-8 permanently assigned to it.