Fifty Glorious Years

An aircraft is a mechanical creation that is as a rule obsolescent. Most simply wear out and break down. The ubiquitious Douglas DC-3, however, has proved to be an exception to the rule. The aging but apparently ageless DC-3 is still today, fifty years after its creation, a consistent and reliable performer, and its durability and versatility keep it in demand.
The DC-3 was an outstanding advance in transport design. It brought the major airline companies of the day out of the perennial red ink to profit in 1936 and 1937.
During World War Two more than 10,000 DC-3s were manufactured by the Douglas Aircraft Company, and the aircraft was indispensable to the war effort. General Dwight D. Eisenhower listed four pieces of equipment as among the most vital to Allied success in Africa and Europe. These were the bulldozer, the jeep, the 2&1/2-ton truck, and the Douglas C-47 transport (the military version of the DC-3). Curiously, none of these was designed for combat.
The DC-3 was still available for the Korean conflict, and it was the air war in Southeast Asia that gave the "Gooney Bird" a new lease on life. The tactical requirements of the war in Vietnam spawned the AC-47. Many doubted the effectiveness of the ancient transport as an interdictor, but the C-47 was to prove most worthy of the new prefix in its designation.
The DC-3 carries on. Today it is being stretched, rebuilt, and fitted out with turboprops for a career in the transport world.
It has become involved in modern society in drug smuggling, gun running, oil pollution control, survey work, and sky diving, and recently a wedding ceremony took place aloft in a DC-3. In remote parts of the world it still performs the task it was designed for more than fifty years ago, that of carrying fare-paying passengers and freight.
There is no doubt that "the only replacement for a DC-3 is another DC-3!"



by Arthur Pearcy
Published by Airlife 1990 reprint of 1985 1st edition. 168pp profusely illustrated in b&w and colour. 22x27 slightly bumped, minor edge wear, otherwise very good including d/j.







Note:
"Long" descriptions, where shown, may have been taken from the book's dust jacket notes, and as such are relevant to the date of publication (e.g. any references to "new edition" "previously unpublished photographs" etc.) and not the present.