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ABC News
ABC News
Business
By Steven Schubert

Alice Springs man giving away commuter plane on Gumtree

The Shorts 330 plane has been sitting at Alice Springs Airport for decades

Free to a good home — one 1981 disused commuter plane.

It's a renovators delight, in need of a little love and attention.

The Shorts 330 plane has been sitting at Alice Springs Airport for decades after it was bought by charter company Charter Air to sell for spare parts.

Head of Charter Air Douglas Hendry said the airport's management told him it needed to go, so he advertised it online.

"I put it on Gumtree on Thursday and it's just gone absolutely viral since I put it up there," he said.

"I had a phone call yesterday from a lady in Darwin who makes pies and she wants to turn it into a pie shop and call it pie in the sky.

"I had another guy from Sydney call me this morning, he's got a putt-putt golf (course) in Sydney and he wants this as the centrepiece of his putt putt golf."

Mr Hendry said he had been overwhelmed by people's creativity.

"It's just amazing, the ideas these people are coming up with I would never have thought about them in a million years," he said.

Mr Hendry said it was unlikely the plane would every return to the skies.

"If you had a spare million bucks you could probably get it flying again," he said.

"It'll never fly, but the good thing about it being here in Alice Springs is it doesn't have an ounce of corrosion on it."

The Shorts 330 ceased production in 1992, and about 136 were built.

A military variant is still used around the world, often as a launch vehicle for paratroopers.

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