The last airplane from a Washington State museum is being sold after its owner ran into financial difficulties. The executive version of a DC-3 owned by the Historic Flight Foundation at Felts Field in Spokane is being sold by Platinum Fighter Sales three months after a judge rejected owner John Sessions’ appeal of the order to liquidate the collection. A Spitfire, Stearman, Piper Cub, Beaver and several other rare and historic aircraft were sold to settle a debt that resulted from a failed development involving one of Sessions’ companies.
The DC-3 didn’t get sold in the first rush and has been listed with Platinum. The plane was built in 1943 and was equipped with long-range tanks and superchargers for its assignment as one of the transports used in the China-Burma-India theater. After the war, it was converted to a business aircraft and spent 50 years flying for a series of companies, including Johnson & Johnson. Sessions sent it for a full restoration in the Johnson & Johnson configuration and picked it up in 2012. AVweb was invited for his first couple of flights in the plane.
Sessions lost a foot in the crash of his newly acquired De Havilland Dragon Rapide at an airshow in Canada in 2018. His financial issues arose out of a failed apartment development in North Dakota and the final court ruling to sell the collection to help settle an earlier $20 million award to a Kansas City bank.
