Goodbye, 727

Cut up into pieces and loaded onto trailers and trucks, the University of Alaska Anchorage said goodbye to its Boeing 727 aircraft on April 6. 

For 10 years, UAA’s Aviation Maintenance program has used the aircraft as a training tool. A defining feature of Merrill Field airport and the UAA Aviation Technology Center, it now will be used as student housing and a trainer at Fly8MA flight school in Big Lake.

The aircraft was donated to UAA in 2013 as part of Fed-Ex’s decommissioning of their Boeing 727 fleet. The Boeing 727 was first flown in 1963. 

Boeing produced 1,832 of the three engine aircraft, with the last one being built in 1984. 

The landing at the small runway was joined by many onlookers, and the jet airliner was then placed in a spot visible for those driving into the airfield to see. 

Jon Kotwicki, owner and Chief Flight Instructor at Fly8MA, plans to use the aircraft for student housing and as a training tool for those enrolled at the school. Other additions include a bar and lounge replacing the horizontal stabilizer, 40 feet in the air.

In an interview with The Northern Light, Kotwicki wants to create housing he describes as, “an experience and a social atmosphere” he then went on to say, “A lot of the learning in aviation is going to occur besides just one-on-one with the instructors. It’s going to occur during interactions with other pilots, sitting around a campfire at night telling stories, that's when a large portion of learning does take place.” 

Kotwicki also said he wants to create housing that will give student pilots a “sense of belonging.”

Taking apart the aircraft was a challenge faced by Kotwicki in the relocation process. He said, “The process of dismantling the aircraft is very dangerous.” 

During one point of disassembly, the aircraft needed to be held up by a crane, and wooden blocks had to be used to prevent the Boeing 727 from shifting and creating an even more dangerous environment.  By cutting up the aircraft, he is able to use these parts as instructional aides for the flight school. 

Another challenge that will be faced is turning the aircraft into a livable space. Kotwicki said, “so, just out of an abundance of caution, we go through and thoroughly clean all these airplanes, bring them down to bare metal, so that there is no engine oil, hydraulic oil, jet fuel, anything that could remotely, you know, be hazardous for long periods of time,” and that, “It's one thing to ride on these as a passenger for a few hours at a time, it's another thing to say somebody's going to live in this or be spending an extended period in there.” 

He also will have to secure the aircraft to the ground once in place to make it safe to live in. 

“It's not as simple as just, you know, putting a car on blocks of concrete blocks and calling it good.”

The aircraft was moved down the highway on a trailer that is made from the aircraft’s fuselage. “It's actually been welded to a dolly and the dolly is it's you know, that's like an understatement. It's used to move bridge girders, I believe it has 18 or 20 tires on it,” Kotwicki said about the loading process. 

“The aircraft itself is the trailer.” 

Kotwicki has budgeted around $600,000 to $800,000 to move, secure, decontaminate and build housing in the aircraft. He plans to start work on the aircraft after he finishes turning his flight school’s DC-6 aircraft into student housing.