Pinehurst Airlines

A

AOG-N-IT

Veteran
Aug 19, 2002
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Does anyone remember the commuter airline called Pinehurst Airlines ???

Pinehurst Airlines was an independent commuter feed that served Pinehurst / Southern Pines N.C. during the mid 70's until it declared Chapter 7 in 1981.

Pinehurst had a handfulll of DC-3's....and is listed as having had an NAMC YS-11A.

I remember the DC-3's very well , Cuz I would see them at the old CLT Airport from time to time...and I would see them in SOP both pre and post Chapter 11 and 7

I recall that the airline was owned by the Diamondhead Corporation , which basically ran the Golfing Village of Pinehurst during those years.

If anyone coulld provide any additional information or Pictures of these Aircraft...I would certainly appreciate it.

I am looking for pictures of one of the DC-3's to give as a gift to a relative...and to have for myself...good memories from my youth.
 
AOG-N-IT said:
Does anyone remember the commuter airline called Pinehurst Airlines ???

Pinehurst Airlines was an independent commuter feed that served Pinehurst / Southern Pines N.C. during the mid 70's until it declared Chapter 7 in 1981.

Pinehurst had a handfulll of DC-3's....and is listed as having had an NAMC YS-11A.
Click to expand...
IIRC Pinehurst actually acquired two ex-Piedmont YS-11s (N246/247P) during their final year or so of operations (1980-81).
What was interesting about these planes is that they kept the PI color scheme and even the typeface of the titles, merely changing "Piedmont" to "Pinehurst".

Similar to when Channel Airways of Great Britain bought some ex-Continental Viscount 800s in the mid-'60s and kept the basic CO "Golden Jet" color scheme, merely changing the titles.
 
Pinehurst Airlines had a somewhat varied history. As AOG said, it started as a "commuter" serving the Pinehurst/Southern Pines airport. DC-3's were used to ensure room for the golf clubs (remember that "commuters" typically used twin Cessnas, Metros, or Beech 19's back then).

Unable to make money flying scheduled service, Pinehurst started doing charters for college teams in the region and got some mail contracts. By the mid-70's this evolved to 1 DC-3 for charters and the others for freight - primarily Emory Air Freight (only Fed-Ex had their own planes back then). The pax charters ended in '75 or '75.

When Piedmont started removing the YS-11's from service, Pinehurst bought options on the first 20 or so (I think, it may have been less). About this time, Airborne Freight bought a small carrier in Indiana to get an operating certificate and was starting to develope a fleet. Pinehurts contracted with Airborne to operate the YS's and had the first two converted to cargo configuration.

Pinehurst was on the financial ropes due to poor management and couldn't affort to excercise the remaining options, so sold them to Airborne (you can still see the YS's in Airborne's colors sitting here and there - several are at FLL). As Airborne got Piedmont's YS's, they didn't need Pinehurst. This was really the death knell for Pinehurst, but they floundered on a while longer by converting the two YS's they had back to pax configuration and attempting pax service between ATL and GSP. As mentioned by AOG, Pinehurst finally folded in '81 I think.

Originally based at the Pinehurst/Southern Pines, the "head shed" moved to an industrial park outside Aberdeen, NC in about '76-'77. Then the whole home base operation moved to Laurinburg/Maxton airport (a WWII military field outside Laurinburg, NC) in '77-'78. Finally, they moved to Donaldson Airpark (another WWII military field) outside Greenville, SC.

Several previous Pinehurst employees now work for US Airways by way of the Piedmont merger - 10 or so pilots and a few mechanics. My old Pinehurst uniform from the pax days is still hanging in the back of the closet.
 
Oh yes, I don't think that Diamond Head Corp. ever owned Pinehurst. DH "owned" Pinehurts (the golf resort) at one time and may have had some financial arrangement with Pinehurts during the commuter days, but I don't know. A gentleman named Burwell owned Pinehurst and his son ran it while I was there. The son (Lawrence I think) liked to think he ran an airline empire in the making.

During the Emory Freight period he would talk about eventually flying DC-10's all over the world as part of the "Emory family". When the Emory flying dried up Airborne was the big thing - Pinehurst was going to go places as part of the "Airborne family".

At the end, when there were only two YS's in Pinehurst's fleet, the company had a huge hanger at Donaldson, as well as serveral other buildings (avionics, admin, etc). There were 11 or 12 VP's with each having a company car. Yet there wasn't an external power cart for the YS's.
 
Late response..... but I was a Loadmaster for Pinehurst on a C-47 / DC-3 during the Summer of 1977.
I was assigned the MCI->STL->IND run. For extra $$$ I'd catch the IND-> DTW turn, while my 1st crew slept. General cargo shoved uphill on a diamond tread floor, late on a hot Summer afternoon followed by the throb of two radials for a 14 hour turn supported my funding to finish college. The memory of loading Louisville Baseball bats and Firestone racing tires through the port door lingers to this day.... LOL
 
platteriverkid said:
Late response..... but I was a Loadmaster for Pinehurst on a C-47 / DC-3 during the Summer of 1977.
I was assigned the MCI->STL->IND run. For extra $$$ I'd catch the IND-> DTW turn, while my 1st crew slept. General cargo shoved uphill on a diamond tread floor, late on a hot Summer afternoon followed by the throb of two radials for a 14 hour turn supported my funding to finish college. The memory of loading Louisville Baseball bats and Firestone racing tires through the port door lingers to this day.... LOL
Click to expand...
Very cool to hear stories from the past.
 
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