Former Dodger-Owned Electra Airplane Now Fighting Forest Fires

A long and glorious history explains how an airplane once owned by the Los Angeles Dodgers is now part of the fleet of Air Spray helping to put out large-scale forest fires in Canada and beyond by dropping fire retardant. The Lockheed Electra II (L-188A) started in service with the Dodgers more than 60 years ago, but now it has a whole different mission.

The Dodgers were proud to fly in the Electra from 1962 through the 1970 season. The 66-seat airplane with a serial number of 1006 and a cruising speed of 400 miles per hour, was christened “Kay ’O” by Dodger President Walter O’Malley in honor of his beloved wife Kay. Dodger airplanes had a unique registration of N1R.

Artwork by cartoonist Pete Bentovoja featured the new Electra II on the cover of the 1962 Dodgers Media Guide showing O’Malley as the pilot and Dodger Manager Walter Alston as co-pilot. The 1963 and 1965 World Champion and 1966 National League Pennant-winning Dodger teams were transported on the Electra. Hall of Fame Dodgers Duke Snider, Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Don Sutton, Jim Bunning, Walter Alston, Vin Scully, Jaime Jarrin, and O’Malley were among the many passengers in the Kay ‘O. 

Dodger pilot Capt. Harry “Bump” Holman facilitated the purchase of the plane from General Motors for $1.8 million. The plane, with four Allison engines, was built by Lockheed for General Motors in 1958 and used as an engine test bed with a first flight on December 6 of that year. When the Dodgers took possession November 22, 1961, they coordinated specific interior and exterior designs for the Electra. They hired Horton and Horton of Fort Worth, Texas to handle the work. O’Malley was very particular about the shape of the baseballs that would be painted on the plane’s exterior and he proposed the long speed stripes that would be painted Dodger blue on each side. Dorothy Horton had the idea to place the skyline of Los Angeles on the tail. On the interior, O’Malley told Holman that he wanted four bunks, six card tables and a lounge but the rest was up to Holman’s imagination.

Dorothy spoke Spanish, according to Holman, and called a carpet supplier in Brazil to design the pattern featuring baseballs and bats woven into the 113-foot long by 15-foot wide blue carpet in the cabin. Bill Horton, Dorothy’s husband, found an artist to paint 13 foot in diameter baseballs on the exterior per O’Malley. The $75,000 improvements made the Electra stand out everywhere it flew. Holman enjoyed flying that plane best because it was completely self-contained. It had its own steps, a low baggage compartment for equipment and suitcases, plus a built-in power supply, enabling it to run air conditioning while on the ground. The Dodgers flew about 500 hours a year in the Electra II.

When the Dodgers weren’t flying in the Electra, Capt. Holman was flying the California Angels for road trips in their early years of existence, so the plane was frequently in use. Holman retired after his father Bud Holman passed away in 1964. 

Capt. Holman wanted to continue the airport services business his dad had started in Vero Beach, Florida. Bud was the person most responsible for attracting the Dodgers to Vero Beach to establish Dodgertown, their spring training home since 1948. Bud also established the Vero Beach Municipal Airport in 1929, and in 1932, he convinced Eastern Air Lines to make Vero’s airport a fueling stop. The Electra frequently flew into the Vero Beach Municipal Airport to bring the Dodgers to Spring Training, shuttle them around the state for exhibition games, and then return to Los Angeles for a new season.

The Dodgers decided to upgrade to a Boeing 720-B Fan Jet beginning in 1971 with Capt. Lew Carlisle (formerly a longtime Eastern Air Lines pilot) at the controls. Capt. Carlisle began working for the Dodgers in 1965 and claimed the Electra racked up 4,500 hours in the air and covered approximately 1,575,000 miles. The professional Tokyo Yomiuri Giants baseball team was transported to Dodgertown, Vero Beach, Florida from Los Angeles during their 1967 spring visit for training.

In December 1970, the Dodgers sold the Electra to American Airlines. Subsequently, it changed hands with various freight haulers Intermountain Aviation, Johnson International Airlines, and Evergreen International. It then was converted back to a passenger plane in 1977 for Air California, before being purchased in 1980 by Mandala Airlines in Indonesia.

In 1995, Capt. Neil Fix from Air Spray in Alberta, Canada, went to Indonesia to pick up the plane. Air Spray then converted it for use as an airtanker to suppress forest fires using retardant. Though Fix still flies the Electra, in 2020, Cristalle Fairbank became the first female pilot of the Electra.

Still in use today, the plane now known as Tanker 489, is fast while carrying 3,000 gallons of retardant and has been used to put out forest fires across the Alberta and British Columbia provinces and other areas. The plane is known for its “tremendous power and range to fight distant fires and the most extreme conditions.”  Air Spray claims that it is “the longest in-service plane” that it owns. Fix said, “It is very good at low-level operations and in the mountains of British Columbia. It is a very useful plane for getting large loads out quickly. It is very maneuverable and designed to work out of smaller airports and get off short runways.” Betsy Kline, CastlegarNews.com, July 9, 2020

Quite a journey for an airplane, one that now is 66 years old and having logged millions of air miles.