On sunny afternoons in the German capital, heads swivel skyward as a throwback DC-3 airplane rumbles overhead on its way to Tempelhof airport, just as it did six decades ago during the military operation that kept half of a divided and broken city alive at the start of the Cold War.

These days, the restored Candy Bomber -- one of the Allied aircraft beloved by West Berlin's children for dropping bags of chocolate and raisins from the skies, as well as delivering hundreds of thousands of tons of life's essentials -- carries only tourists seeking to relive the Berlin Airlift of 1948-49. But its timeworn flight path may be nearing an end.