Hijacked Airliner Becomes Awesome California Camper

By C. MacDonald

I uncovered some really strange stories in my five years as a nationally-syndicated columnist, searching for the odd and unknown. My columns ran in newspapers throughout "The Golden State" before Huell Howser's popular "California's Gold" TV segments and about the time of Charles Kuralt's "On the Road" TV shows for CBS.

Kuralt once told me the public kept him humble. "When I first started the series, our motor home pulled into a small Kansas town and we were all tired and didn't want to be disturbed," he explained in an interview. "An elderly lady came up to our door and started pounding on it. I reluctantly greeted her and she said, 'I'd like to purchase two loaves of bread.' That really took the air out of my balloon--she thought it was a bread truck. It gave me humility!"

I remember interviewing a lot of interesting, unusual California people-- known more so than a retired flagpole painter, Santa Claus-looking fellow named Smokey Rolland, who lived in Cardiff. This character actually turned an airplane into a camper.

The plane had been an Argonaut Airline DC-3, which flew out of Miami. Rolland said it had been hijacked twice to Cuba in the 1960s. In 1977, he traded an old school bus for the plane, which had "landed" in a Tucson, Arizona scrapyard. He placed it on a truck frame and hauled the metal craft to his front yard in Cardiff. In seven months, he turned it into an operable camper.

He put the old aircraft on a Dodge truck chassis and powered it with a 465-cubic-inch Lincoln Continental engine. Using electrical and mechanical equipment, which was scrounged up or donated, Rolland created a camper that would have taken thousands of dollars to make commercially. He had to cut four feet off the plane's end to meet state road requirements. His vehicle was slightly less than the maximum allowed 40-foot length. It was 8 feet wide and 11 feet high.

I rode with him in his "plane" down Interstate 5, much to the delight of gawking passersby. He said Highway Patrolmen had stopped him and measured the length on more than one occasion.

Smokey told me about some of the strangest incidents involving the plane that is by no means "plain":

--When it broke down near Palomar Airport, an airborne pilot radioed the tower that a DC-3 was disabled and the Highway Patrol was dispatched to provide assistance.

--The craft was parked outside a fence at the southern end of Lindbergh Field, prompting a pilot, before takeoff, to jokingly tell passengers that a rival airline's new equipment had just arrived.

--A drunk saw the plane, rubbed his eyes and walked away from an Oceanside bar where he was apparently headed.

Imaginative Smokey used the cockpit escape hatch (in the ceiling) as a sunroof. Cabin lights, overhead racks, air vents, specially luggage racks and airplane seats remained intact.

Creating additional atmosphere were signs--"Emergency Exits," "Not to be occupied during takeoff and landing," "Oxygen" and "Landing Gear Hydraulic Pressure Gauge."

However, instead of a cruising speed of 240 mph, like a DC-3, the plane settled for 55 on California Freeways.

"It handles much better than my family car and the power steering is such that the whole plane can be turned with one finger," he said.

Just like a real pilot, prior to takeoff, Rolland walked around the craft, checking for flat tires and other potential problems. Next, he climbed aboard and pulled up the steps, before strolling through a long aisle, talking to passengers.

Sitting in the cockpit, he checked his dials and shouted, "Fasten your seat belts and prepare to take off!" The engine turned and off he went, providing a sight that many people will have difficulty proving to their friends that evening."

"She once held 28 passengers and a crew of three but now only a few friends will take advantage of the spacious room, while I make trips across the country," he said.

Smokey's camper definitely has come a long ways since neighbors insisted it would never get off the ground.

THE REST OF THE STORY
The last time I saw Smokey's plane-camper was outside a transmission shop in Orange around 1980. Further research indicated it was purchased by a couple, who renovated it into a Space Shuttle look-alike. It was called, "The Smile Shuttle," and they took it overseas to events in the 1980s. Another couple ended up with it and turned Smokey's find into "The Space Shuttle Cafe." So it looks like America's most unusual DC-3 still is creating history at air shows and events throughout California and the nation. I'm sure Smokey would be thrilled!