THE DC3 A BEAUTIFUL
AIRCRAFT
Now
the DC3 has been grounded by EU health and safety rules 'It groaned, it
protested, it rattled, it ran hot, it ran cold, it ran rough, it staggered
along on hot days.
'Its wings flexed and twisted in a horrifying manner, it sank back to earth
with a great sigh of relief. But it flew and it flew and it flew.'
This is the memorable description by Captain Len Morgan, a former pilot with
Braniff Airways, of the unique challenge of flying a Douglas DC-3.
It's carried more passengers than any plane in history,
but -
Now the DC-3 has been grounded by EU health and safety rules.
The DC-3 served in World War II , Korea and Vietnam,
and was a favourite among pilots
For more than 70 years, the aircraft known through a variety of nicknames --- the Doug, the Dizzy, Old Methuselah, the Gooney
Bird of the Navy, the Grand Old Lady --- but
which to most of us is simply the Dakota of the Army ---
has been the workhorse of the skies.
With its distinctive nose-up profile when on the ground and extraordinary
capabilities in the air, it transformed passenger travel, and served in just about every military conflict from World War
II onwards.
Now the Douglas DC-3 --- the most successful
plane ever made, which first took to the skies just over 30 years after the
Wright Brothers' historic first flight --- is
to carry passengers in Britain for the last time.
Romeo Alpha and Papa Yankee, the last two passenger-carrying Dakotas in the
Their owner, Coventry-based Air Atlantique, has reluctantly decided it would be
too expensive to fit the required emergency-
escape slides and weather-radar systems required
by new European rules for their 65-year-old planes, which served with the RAF
during the war.
Mike Collett, the company's chairman, says: "We're very saddened."
The end of the passenger-carrying British Dakotas is a sad chapter in the story
of the most remarkable aircraft ever built, surpassing all others in length of
service, dependability and achievement.
It has been a luxury airliner, transport plane, bomber, fighter and flying
hospital, and introduced millions of people to
the concept of air travel.
It has flown more miles, broken more records, carried more passengers and
cargo, accumulated more flying time and performed more 'impossible' feats than
any other plane in history, even in these days of super-jumbos that can circle
the world non-stop.
Indeed, at one point, 90 percent of the world's air traffic was operated by
DC-3s....
More than 10,500 DC-3s have been built since the prototype was rolled out to
astonished onlookers at Douglas's
With its eagle beak, large square windows and sleek metal fuselage, it was
luxurious beyond belief, in contrast to the wood-and-canvas bone shakers of the
day, where passengers had to huddle under blankets against the cold.
Even in the 1930s, the early
Early menus included wild-rice pancakes with
blueberry syrup, served on bone china with silver service.
For the first time, passengers were able to stand-
up and walk- around while the plane was
airborne.
But the design had one vital feature, ordered by pioneering aviator Charles
Lindbergh, who was a director of TWA, which placed the first order for the
plane....
The DC-3 should always, Lindbergh directed, be able to fly on one- engine.
Pilots have always loved it, not just because of its rugged reliability but
because, with no computers on board, it is the epitome of 'flying by the seat- of- the- pants'.
One aviator memorably described the Dakota as a 'collection of parts flying in
loose formation', and most reckon they can land it pretty well on a postage
stamp.
Captain Len Morgan says: 'The Dakota could lift virtually any load strapped to
its back and carry it anywhere and in any weather safely.'
It is the very human scale of the plane that has so endeared it to successive
generations.
With no pressurization in the cabin, it flies low and slow.
And unlike modern jets, it's still possible to see the world go by from the
cabin of a Dakota.
(The name, incidentally, is an acronym for Douglas Aircraft Company Transport
Aircraft.)
As a former Pan Am stewardess puts it: "From the windows, you seldom look
upon a flat, hazy, distant surface to the world.
"Instead, you see the features of the earth ---
curves of mountains, colours of lakes, cars moving on roads, ocean waves
crashing on shores, and cloud formations as a sea of popcorn and powder puffs.'
But it is for heroic feats in military service that the legendary plane is most
distinguished.
It played a major role in the invasion of
When General Eisenhower was asked what he believed were the foundation stones
for America's success in World War II, he named the bulldozer, the jeep, the
half-ton truck, and the Dakota.
When the Burma Road was captured by the Japanese, and the only way to send
supplies into
In 1945, a Dakota broke the world record for a flight with an engine out of
action, travelling for 1,100 miles from Pearl Harbor to San Diego, with just
one- propeller working.
Another in RNZAF service lost a wing after colliding mid-air with a Lockheed
bomber. Defying all the rules of aerodynamics, and with only a stub remaining,
the plane landed, literally, on a wing and a prayer at Whenuapai Airbase.
Once, a Dakota pilot carrying paratroops across the Channel to
He went aft to find that half the plane had been blown away, including part of
the rudder.
With engines still turning, he managed to skim the wave-tops before finally
making it to safety.
Another wartime Dakota was rammed by a Japanese fighter that fell to earth,
while the American crew returned home in their severely damaged --- but still airborne ---plane, and were given the distinction of 'downing an enemy
aircraft'.
Another DC-3 was peppered with 3,000 bullets in the wings and fuselage by
Japanese fighters.
It made it back to base, was repaired with canvas patches and glue, and then sent back into the air.
During the evacuation of
In addition to its rugged military service, it was the DC-3 which transformed
commercial -passenger flying in the post-war
years.
Easily converted to a passenger plane, it introduced the idea of affordable air
travel to a world which had previously seen it as exclusively for the rich.
Flights across
It made the world a smaller place, gave people the opportunity for the first
time to see previously inaccessible destinations ,
and became a romantic symbol of travel.
The DC-3's record has not always been perfect.
After the war, military-surplus
Accidents were frequent.
One of the most tragic happened in 1962, when Zulu Bravo, a Channel Airways
flight from Jersey, slammed into a hillside on the
All three crew and nine of the 14 passengers died, but the accident changed the
course of aviation history.
The local radar, incredibly, had been switched off because it was a Sunday.
The national air safety rules were changed to ensure it never happened again.
'The DC-3 was, and is, unique,' wrote the novelist and aviation writer Ernest
Gann, 'since no other flying machine has cruised every sky known to mankind,
been so admired, cherished, glamorized, known the touch of so many pilots and
sparked so many tributes..
"It was without question the most successful aircraft ever built, and even
in this jet-age,
it seems likely that the surviving DC-3s may fly about their business
forever."
This may be no exaggeration. Next month, Romeo Alpha and Papa Yankee begin a
farewell tour of
But after their retirement, there will still be
Nearly three-quarters of a century after they first entered service, it's still
possible to get a Dakota ride somewhere in the world.
I recently took a DC-3 into the heart of the Venezuelan jungle --- to the "Lost World" made famous in the
novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
It is one of the most remote regions on the planet ---
where the venerable old planes have long been used because they can be
manoeuvred like birds in the wild terrain.
It's a scary experience being strapped into a torn canvas chair, raked back at
an alarming angle (walking along the aisle of a stationary Dakota is like climbing
a steep hill) as you wait for take-off.
The engines spew smoke and oil as they shudder into life with what DC-3 fans
describe as 'music', but to me sounded like the
hammering of a thousand pneumatic -
drills.
But soon you are skimming the legendary flat-topped mountains protruding from
the jungle below, purring over wild rivers and the
Suddenly the ancient plane drops like a stone to a tiny landing strip just
visible in the trees.
The pilot dodges bits of dismantled DC-3 engines scattered on the ground and
avoids a stray dog as he touches down with scarcely a bump.
How did he do it without air traffic control and the minimum of navigational
aids?
''C'est facile --- it's easy," he shrugged.
Today, many DC-3s live-on throughout the world as crop-sprayers, surveillance patrols,
air freighters in forgotten African states, and
even luxury executive transports.
One, owned by a
In
Even when they have ended their aerial lives, old
One even serves as a football team changing room.
Clark Gable's private DC-3, which once ferried chums such as John and Bobby
Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra and Ronald Reagan, is in a theme park in
But don't assume it won't run again. Some of the oldest hulks have been put
back in the skies.
The ancient piston- engines are replaced by
modern turboprops, and many a pilot of a modern jet has been astonished
to find a Dakota alongside him on the climb away from the runway.
So what is the enduring secret of the DC-3?
David Egerton, professor of the history of science and technology at
'The very fact that the DC-3 is still around and performing a useful role in
the world is a powerful reminder that the latest and most expensive technology
is not always the one that changes history,' he says.
It's long been an aviation axiom that 'the only replacement for the DC-3 is
another DC-3'.
So it's fortunate that at least one seems likely to be around for a very long
time to come.
In 1946, a DC-3 on a flight from
The aircraft was not damaged and all the passengers were rescued, but it
quickly began to disappear as a blinding snowstorm raged.
Swiss engineers have calculated that it will take 600 years for it to slide- down inside the glacier and emerge at the bottom.
I especially appreciate the part requiring "escape slides". On it's
belly, you can step down from the aircraft floor to the ground. And the article
left out the tale of the "DC-2-and-a-Half". After being shot- up by
Japanese fighters, the damaged wing of a DC-3 was replaced with one from a
DC-2. It was then loaded up with refugees, and flown to safety.