Any fans of the Douglas DC-3?

I remember, as a small kid in the 1950's and 1960's, laying on my back on the grass and watching the DC-3's and other prop jobs heading east after leaving the SLC airport. The mountains surrounding the valley are fairly high on the east and west sides and the planes had to gain a few thousand feet to get out of the valley. On hot days in the summer, they seemed to just hang there, the engines wound up, making a unique sound. They flew visibly slower than the 4 engine Douglas jobs.

One of the U.S. airlines (I think United) had a beautifully restored DC-3 they flew around the country a couple of years ago. They did mini ground tours of it at the SLC airport. It was worth the trip to see it. They were so much smaller inside and out than I remember going through one as a kid.

It's still a beauty of a workhouse. You just have to love the look of that fierce nose and cockpit.
 
Flew quite a few miles in one. I think every air base had a couple for local area transplantation (and the base commander to joy ride in). Flew from England to Wiesbaden Germany and back a few times but the most memorable was the weekend when I was on duty (in France) and one of our F84's returning from Wheelus AFB Libya stopped at Pizza Int airport to refuel and couldn't get it restarted. So they flew us 2 jet engine mech's, and an airframe specialist to Pizza. I got the plane going (starter ignitor plug), but by the time we got all ready to leave the Pilot (winked) and said looked like bad weather, so we stayed the night in Pizza. Then got actually socked in with Fog for two more days. Finally got off and flying over the Alps Capt. banked plane to the right then to the left several times, I opened up the drape between the cargo area and cockpit and asked Capt. what was going on and he said "Mountains are 12,000 ft and the wings are icing up and can't get over 10,000 ft altitude so he was banking in between peaks. He had the little side window open and was scraping ice off the windshield with a K-Bar. Then when he radioed ahead for landing he was told the base was in the middle of a snowstorm and we couldn't land. We were redirected to Marseilles. By then we were all about broke and we were pooling our money to be able to afford rooms and a little to eat that night. The next day Capt. got in the air and again told we shouldn't try to land because of snow, he told them we were coming in, and put it down on a half covered runway with maybe 6" of snow. Took darn near 2 weeks to get reimbursed for our expenses.
 
How could you.......

How could you NOT love the DC-3. They've seen about everything and aren't finished yet.

I have a thing about old planes anyway. A propeller plane uses the air to its best advantage and I love to see them bounce off the wind. A jet, as cool as they are, treat the air like an obstacle. It's not just faster, it's different.
 
Loved flying on the company owned DC3. Working at AUTEC on Andros Island in the early 70, we flew in and out on one either Island hopping or back to West Palm and it was customary to applaud each time we landed.
 
The Goon will always be special to me. I was assigned as a crew chief in 1971 in Vietnam on an EC-47. I'd been assigned to a Ranch Hand unit the flew C123s but they were shutting down spraying operations because the health problems from the herbicides. I worked on the Goon for balance of my time there. Back in the states I was a crew chief on the B-52 but my best memories are of the C-47. I did get to fly on the C-47 a few times but we didn't normally have flying crew chiefs.
 

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I used to fly out of Fort Leonard Wood Mo on Skyway avaiation. They had a fleet of the old ladies and their own collection of them at a smaller airport.

I've sit there and watched the rivets vibrate up an down, they were pretty thin in the middle.
 
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Jessie said:
It's ironic that you mention that plane. I don't know if you were referring to my pic of the B767 cockpit from "our old jobs", but if so, I became a pilot because of my Dad who flew C-47s in WWII, which is a DC-3.
It's still one plane I have not flown yet but really want to before my time is up.
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Yes, your thread brought me back to those days, and that 767 got my thoughts airborne.
Funny coincidence about it being your dads plane.
I made the connection because at the early 80's time-frame of my office pic in your thread, I was working south of Augusta, GA, where Provincetown-Boston Airlines used to fly DC-3's to FL.
I would take that flight at every opportunity, even though more modern options were available. The low and slow flight combined with the sound and feel, and made an immersive flight experience. I loved the look of the plane also.
 
The Douglas DC-3 / C-47 Skytrain probably did as much, or more, to win WWII as any single fighter plane.

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shouldazagged said:
Traveled many a mile on DC-3s when they were still the airliner in this country.

A C-47 is the only plane I have ever, briefly, flown myself. It was a rush--I was eighteen at the time.

The C-47/DC-3 is, in my opinion, one of the most versatile and important aircraft ever designed. Next in line is the C-130.
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The first aircraft I EVER flew in 1963-64' Lake Central Airlines from Indy to South Bend. Great experience for a 6 or 7 year old.

There used to be an airstrip 10 miles south of Indy that had a Parachute School that used REAL C47's. When I got the money up to do a static jump, (teenager thinking 82nd and 101st into Normandy!), the DEA stepped in and busted the outfit for flying weed in from Columbia!
 
italiansport said:
The last time I flew on one of these was island hopping down in the Caribbean. I don't know if they're still in use down there or not.
Jim
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Yup. Would been mid '70s IIRC. Leaving St Thomas to go back to Puerto Rico we go out on the tarmac & "WHOA!" :D Hadn't flown in one since the '60s. My mom worked for AA so I spent quite a few flights in 'em.
 
In Burma during WWII, those things carried everything from rice to troops to mules. The RAF called them Dakotas.

The only complaints that I've seen on them were from paratroops who were dropped from too low an altitude in the Normandy invasion. But that was pilot error. Read: pilot terror, of flak and heavy small arms fire.
 
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My very first flight was in a Marine C-47 (but I think they called it something else) in 1961 (maybe 1962, not sure) between Cherry Point and NOTC in China Lake CA, with a few stops along the way. I remember sitting on web seats the whole way. Who could forget such an experience.
 
Too many hours ridin in those in the early 70's at MCAS El Toro. Later on, Futema MCAS on Okinawa had the last 2. I flew in one of those up to Japan. That was it's last flight.
 
June 15, 1962. Flew from Amarillo to Ft Leonard Wood on a Tree Top Airlines DC-3. Tree Top Airlines was the nick name for Trans-Texas Airlines which latter became Texas International Airlines.
 
Dennis said:
Too many hours ridin in those in the early 70's at MCAS El Toro. Later on, Futema MCAS on Okinawa had the last 2. I flew in one of those up to Japan. That was it's last flight.
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Miss Iwakuni (C-117D) ended up on a pedestal at MCAS El Toro in the late 1980's. Wonder where she went when they closed El Toro.
 
My second commercial airline flight was in a DC-3. From Denver to Colorado Springs. Flight attendant was in the head the entire flight as we followed the front range.
 
The only time I recall flying in a DC3 was from Montgomery, AL to Jackson, MS.
But the C-47, have flown many a mile in many parts of the world.
 
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