The story begins

During mid 1990, two swedish enthusiasts came up with the idea of preserving a Caravelle in flyable condition. This would be possible as the Swedish Airforce still operated two Caravelle III as Signal Intelligence platforms. The technical development made big steps forward since 1971 when Caravelle joined the military fleet and the technical equipment is better, more advanced and don't require the same amount of space nowadays. The Airforce were by the time looking for replacement aircrafts and the modern Gulfstream IV were choosen for this purpose and delivery was set to late 1990. During the autumn 1997, Michael Sanz and Ola Carlsson, decided to form an association around one of the Caravelles. Together with some other Caravellefans the association "Bevara Caravellen UB" (Save the Caravelle - Under Construction). This was a temporary name which soon was changed to the more international Le Caravelle Club, a name giving a hint of the manufacturers origin. Ola Carlsson was selected as the first president. Talks began with the Airforce and the Airforce Museum and from the very beginning great enthusiasm were showed from all parties. However we soon learned that we were not the only ones with ideas for the aircraft. The technical scool in Nyköping as well as the one in Västerås wanted an airframe for training purpose. Even worse, the Airforce Fireschool in Halmstad wanted an instructional airframe.

In 1998 the Airforce ended its Caravelle operations. First aircraft to be retired was "851" which were transferred to the Airforce Museum in Linköping. The future plans for "852" were now focused at the Fireschool. The plans of applying for permission to train civil firefighters required an instructional airframe. Earlier discussions about a Tupolev 154 was terminated as the costs were to high. Suddenly the airforce had a surplus Caravelle which could be delivered directly to Halmstad and they already owned it! Major setback for us and we had to restart the whole project.

In this forced situation we suddenly found ourselfs promising that we would arrange a replacement aircraft to the school. A destiny of "our" beauty becoming a firetrainer - we could not let that happen!!! After many long negotiations with the Airforce we reached an agreement and "852" were saved, at least for now.

Delivery

28th January 1999 was set as deliverydate. With a temperature of minus 17 degrees and the necessary preparations already in progress, the nerves of the boardmembers were still out of limit. Our promises were not yet fully accepted and final destination were still not decided. What was it going to be? Halmstad and the Fireschool or Arlanda and the clubs base? With the departure time at 13.00 already passed the phonecall finally came. And thumbs up for the boardmembers confirmed we were heading north! Sven Scheiderbauer from the Airforce Museum handed over the logbook to the clubs president Ola Carlsson and a sigh of relief spread over the apron. We entered the aircraft - destination Arlanda! Crew on this historic flight consisted of Bertil Kylborn, Jan Björkman and flight engineer Ove Karlsson. Representatives from Le Caravelle Club and the Airforce were also to be found on board. After the take off we made a lowpass over Malmslätt followed by one over the SAAB airfield then we finally gained altitude and headed for Stockholm. 40 minutes flight and final approach to runway 01 where a group of people saluted us when touching down and releasing the brakechute. The runway is 3300 meters so quite an overkill to use the shute but we wanted to show off a little bit as its quite unique feature on this size of aircraft. This was the great end of a long day. Aircraft finally on its new base but the ownership should come to remain with the Airforce until the replacement aircraft issue were solved.

Replacement aircraft

During 1999 Ola Carlsson gave up the leadership of the club and Claes Insulander was chosen as the new president. With many years of experience from the swedish world of steamboats and not afraid of crazy projects, he and the club started the search for a replacement aircraft. The Fireschool came up with some demands for this, actually set by Civil Aviation Administration and necessary for receiving the permission. It had to be minimum a 30-seater with low wings and overwing emergency exits. Couldn't be that hard could it? At Arlanda the scrapping of three Fokker F28 and two TriStars were just completed. We were to late for this but still numerous solutions were left.

West Air Sweden used a HS748 for spareparts. An Estonian company offered a Tu134 in Tallinn which was very cheap. SAAB was going to retire one of their SAAB 2000 prototypes. A BAC 1-11 was also considered as it was grounded at Arlanda since a hard landing at Arlanda 7th July 1997. The difficult part turned out to be how to deliver the aircraft to Halmstad. The Tu134 project was abandonned due to its lack of flyability and transportation by sea way to expensive. The HS748 project was also abandonned mainly because it would cost to much to restore it to a status accepted by the school. The BAC project would also cost to much due to the massive restoration but this one could be delivered on time. The SAAB project interested the school most as this was a modern airliner still in use by many companies. The problem was SAAB could not let us have the aircraft on time. With time being the biggest issue it we decided to deliver the BAC without any demands of restoration if we then delivered the SAAB as soon as possible and restored it to a "real" airliner. With this solution presented, the school could start its courses in time and the school would later have the trainingaircraft they really wanted. Everybody happy! Except the fact that two different special transports had to be arranged and nevertheless be financed with money we didn't have... Time for the magic wand!

The BAC project turned out to be more complicated than we thought. The aircrafts ownership was changed since the accident 1997 when they made a hard landing, ran off the runway and broke the nosewheel. In 1999 Tarom sold the hulk to Nationwide Airlines in South Africa. Their intention was to repair and fly the aircraft back to Johannesburg. They would soon learn that hangarspace at Arlanda were not cheap enough and the intentions then changed to our advantage. The airport management were also keen to get rid of the hulk. We presented a plan how to help them if we in exchange could buy the airframe. As parking fees increased Nationwide realised the best thing was to give up the airframe after removing all useful parts such as engines and avionics. Aircraft was finally traded in by the airport and sold to the club.

28th October 1999 airport firefighters helped us to cut the fin and wings. 3rd November the BAC was loaded on two supertrailers and the 600km roadtrip started. First step of the rescueplan completed, the club extremly poor and still lots of trouble and huge expenses ahead. After several delays of the SAAB project, the prototype Nr 3 was set to our disposition and dismantling began. 19 March 2001 the SAAB was loaded on a trailer. During the year we restored the airliner together with SAAB technicians and 13th December the acceptance of the clubs work came. All parties were now satisfied regarding the replacementaircraft and "852" were saved!

Spareparts

During 1999 the Airforce donated the remaining spareparts including three spare engines to Le Caravelle Club. Special tools and some ground equipment as well as all documentation were also included. In panic the club was forced to rent two 40feet containers to house everything as the stores were needed for other purposes. Later we found two other containers which could be bought to a reasonable price. Everything was reloaded and shipped to Arlanda.

Preserving the aircraft - Situation today

Since the ferryflight to Arlanda 28th January 1999 no flights has been made with "852". In the beginning of the project two main issues were discussed regarding the preservation. Either conserve the engines and all systems or frequently run the engines and exercise all systems. After careful consideration we decided the latter would be best for the aircraft, keeping in mind we have quite an advanced hydraulicsystem. Also we show a living piece of history. First years the engineruns were carried out every 45th day but situation has changed and for different reasons we are not able to do it as often lately. Uncertain fuelsupply and some technical issues being the main  reasons. A couple of times we taxied the aircraft around Arlanda. We were the first airliner to "use" Arlandas new runway, long time before the official inauguration! Several times Shell have supported with JetA-1 to make sure our engineruns can continue. Every time we use around 200kg of fuel when running the engines for 10min.

17th June 1999 our aircraft received the clubs name and the military markings were covered up. We also applied the original registration "SE-DAI" on the tail despite not officially reregistered - yet. The dream of restoring the aircraft into its original civil standard is still there and the Airforce helped us before delivery. The Pinoccio-nose was replaced with the original one, all antennas and the bathtub under the fuselage were removed. Unfortunately some structional modifications were made during the convertion to Tp85, some that we will propably never be able to restore. Original cabinlights was flourecent, nowadays replaced with bulbs giving a somewhat soft light. The pentry was replaced by a navigators panel, now empty exept for some ballast. There is a pentry specially made for moving between the two Tp85s. In the cabin we now have original SAS seats. Only left seats though, giving us a 2+2 configuration. The Airforce used a couple of operatorseats for the radioequipment which were mounted along the right side. Thats why no 3-seats were kept. The toilet on the right side were also sacrificed in favour of  radioequipment.

Twice a year meetings with Flygande Veteraner (Flying Veterans) are arranged and they fly into Arlanda with their DC-3. During a couple of years we had a desk at the Wheelhistorian Christmas market in the Cityhall. We also arrange membermeetings with differnet lecturers.

During 2005 the clubs regulations were revised after realising how far away flying is. The new ones tell the clubs main interest is to preserve the aircraft with possibilities to make it flyable. Of course engineruns and systemchecks will continue anyway.

During 2006 we began examine the possibilities to find a permanent place for future exposure with possibilities to show the aircraft to the public in a better way.