The World's Largest Weathervane, a DC-3

The World’s Largest Weathervane, A Douglas DC-3 airplane sits on a pedestal in front of the Yukon Transportation Museum, where it was moved in the summer of 2009.

The title of “The World’s Largest Weathervane” isn’t just a joke. Placed on a specially engineered pedestal in 1981, the plane slowly and silently pivots and move with the breeze, so that her nose is always pointing into the wind as if in a perpetual, never-ending flight. It only takes a five-knot wind to turn her.

Bought in April 1946 by Canadian Pacific Airlines, the plane served as a military cargo plane, a civilian plane, and later as a “bush plane.” In truly Canadian style the plane was outfitted with skis so that it might land on remote snowy plains to deliver supplies. After logging 31,851 hours, the DC-3 flew her last flight in November 1970 and was donated to the Yukon Flying Club in 1977. Though the DC-3 has been downgraded to the status of weathervane, as far as the fate of retired planes go, flying forever into the oncoming wind is a pretty good last gig.