Polk County pot plane

Article Found on Wikipedia

On August 1975 Drug smugglers landed a Douglas DC-4 on a 1000 foot airstrip which had been bulldozed out of the forest only hours beforehand. The DC-4, designed for runways of 3000 feet or longer, managed to stop in less than 500. Numerous bales of marijuana were unloaded from the aircraft, which was then abandoned. As one might expect, a large four engine piston aircraft roaring about the countryside at low level in the dead of night attracted considerable attention from the locals, and law enforcement in particular. Numerous suspects were quickly apprehended in the following days. Charges were dropped against many.

The DC-4 had been seized by authorities as evidence. Various schemes for disposing of the aircraft were proposed. One involved using helicopters to airlift the ship out of the woods to the nearest proper airport. Another was to turn the site into a local tourist attraction. At length though, the aircraft was auctioned off to the highest bidder on the courthouse steps. The new owner lengthened the airstrip out to roughly 3500 feet and flew the aircraft out shortly thereafter.

A semi-documentary, semi-drama of the whole affair "titled in hot pursuit " was filmed and released in 1977. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mph3KhbkzpE

The site of the airstrip is overgrown now. It is described as being just west of Ga. Highway 100 on Treat Mountain, southwest of Fullwood Springs, GA.

Nearby cities: Rome, Georgia, Atlanta, Georgia, Opelika, Alabama
Coordinates: 33°53'58"N 85°20'26"W

The guys in charge of disposing the aircraft must have been on drugs a tourist attraction cmon really what are you smoking

Dang ol nuttin butta bunch a boon Howard's man

That's a lot of trouble for brick weed, if it was brick weed.

Dang on you got that riaght man

A tourist attraction? Who in the hell would pay to go see that?

are they sure there wasn't blow and heroin on board too...them planes aint cheap....yeehaw

That is flat out amazing to park a dc-4 in 500'. Props to the pilot, that's scary as fook to attempt.

Kind of strange to not have an exit plan. Guessing Trout is on to something , must have been quite the load, planes ain't cheap that's for sure.

Cool story, would love to meet the cat that landed that hog, well done.

Oh yeah and that's great, guy buys it dozes runway and flies off. Bet he got that plane for a song!

prob same pilot that landed it.....yeehaw

I read another article where they had qualudes on board

for a movie made buy Quentin tarrintino its pretty shitty he could have done a better job on the sound effects of the car chases who all made it through the whole thing

Lester Beans said:

Kind of strange to not have an exit plan. Guessing Trout is on to something , must have been quite the load, planes ain't cheap that's for sure.

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even back then musta been some air force around...
thinkin ditchin the plane and blazin off a few trucks WAS the exit plan...

"It had clipped pine trees on the way in and needles were still stuck in the prop. It was carrying 3,260 pounds of marijuana and 75 pounds of hashish, which were mostly recovered by authorities from a rental truck a few miles away. Many were arrested but most were released, including the plane's owner, Robert Eby, as nobody could prove he was flying it at the time."

so from wiki we see:
Specifications (DC-4-1009)


General characteristics

• Crew: four
• Capacity: 40 to 80 passengers[1]
• Length: 93 ft 10 in (28.6 m)
• Wingspan: 117 ft 6 in (35.8 m)
• Height: 27 ft 6 in (8.38 m)
• Wing area: 1,460ft² (135.6 m²)
• Empty weight: 43,300 lb (19,640 kg)
• Loaded weight: 63,500 lb (28,800 kg)
• Max. takeoff weight: 73,000 lb (33,100 kg)

heh
so the payload is 20 to 30k#...
with <4k# recovered in one truck
and this was a long production line since WWII
likely a one way trip plan
cool stuff

Probably made more than one landing. The one in Georgia was probably the last stop. That plane was most likely loaded to the gills when it took off from it's original destination.

Cool story.

Howdy! I'm in the process of writing a book about this event and the subsequent movie, so I figured that I could add some useful info. I've interviewed people from both and am doing a bunch of additional research. Let's dig into it!

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From St. Phatty:

That's a lot of trouble for brick weed, if it was brick weed.

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The weed was loaded in Purina dog food bags. Apparently, this was a sign that the weed was fresh, as weed in plastic bags had usually been warehoused and could be mildewed.

From stoned-trout:

are they sure there wasn't blow and heroin on board too...them planes aint cheap....yeehaw

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There was only hash and weed. The criminal penalties for cocaine and heroin were much steeper than for pot, and generally 'hard' and 'soft' narcotics didn't mix much. This was also when the military had been selling off their WW2 and Korean-era planes for years, so they were plentiful and cheap. Some smugglers bought a plane for each run, abandoning or burning it after they were finished. The margins were so good that ground personnel and drivers were generally paid about ten grand each.

From Lester Beans:

Kind of strange to not have an exit plan.

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There actually was an exit plan, but bad weather messed it up. Originally, the plane was supposed to take back off and be reused later. Heavy rains the days before the flight not only prevented the clearing of an adequate runway but also got the plane stuck, contributing to the short landing. By the time the ground crew knew the runway couldn't be finished in time, it was too late to stop.

From FishmanK:

so the payload is 20 to 30k#... with <4k# recovered in one truck

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There were two trucks. The other one got away, got unloaded, and got ditched in Atlanta. It still wasn't much compared to the plane's capacity, but the smugglers involved later graduated into the big leagues with much larger loads.

From Skinny Leaf:

Probably made more than one landing. The one in Georgia was probably the last stop.

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Believe it or not, Treat Mountain was the only stop for offloading. The guys behind this one did straightforward one-and-done runs.

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I'd be delighted to answer any questions y'all have about the Polk County pot plane or Polk County Pot Plane (1977). It's a fascinating story that should be more widely known. I'm putting a lot of work into the project and have been in touch with most of the surviving participants. With any luck, I'll have a book out on it sometime within the next few years. Sorry for the thread bump; I just had to respond. Cheers!

75 lbs of hash? damn...

........... the 'good ole days', when men were MEN and pot was POT!