Dueling Duos: Boeing 247 vs Douglas DC-2 | Curator on the Loose!

Video from the channel The Museum of Flight about Douglas DC-2, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 11:13. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.

Curator Matthew Burchette, from the Museum of Flight, compares two 1930s passenger aircraft that are part of the museum's collection, the Boeing 247 and the Douglas DC-2. He walks through their design, cabin, and history.

Passenger air transport in the United States grew out of airmail routes. The Contract Air Mail Act of 1925, known as the Kelly Act, spurred a private industry that needed bigger, faster, and safer aircraft to compete with the railroads. Air-cooled engines, the artificial horizon, and routes marked with beacon lights and radio beacons made that new generation possible.

The 247 debuted in 1933: it was faster than the Boeing P-12 fighter, could fly on a single engine, and carried ten passengers at about 155 mph (≈250 km/h). The video shows its forward-sloping windshield, the wing spar running through the cabin, and landing gear that didn't fully retract, to cushion a wheels-up landing. In the war it served as the C-73 transport, and a British example made the first fully automatic blind landing in 1945. United's order for 60 units, an airline tied to Boeing, left other companies without access to the aircraft. TWA turned to Douglas, which produced the DC-1 and, in 1934, the DC-2: 14 passengers, 191 mph (≈307 km/h), Wright R-1820 Cyclone engines, and 19 American records in six months. A KLM DC-2 came second in the 1934 London-Melbourne race. 75 Boeing 247s and 190 DC-2s were built. Today eight DC-2s survive, two airworthy, and one of them belongs to the museum.