DOKU / Douglas DC 3 - Das Flugzeug, das die Welt verändert hat

Video from the channel AeroPatrick85 about Douglas DC-3, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 52:32. Language: German. Video type: Documentary.

Documentary on the long career of the Douglas DC-3, a civil and military aircraft at once, known as the Sleeper, C-47, Dakota or, in Germany, Rosinenbomber. Its story is interwoven with several present-day stories: a Swiss businessman who flies a restored example and buys another, "Judy," a Second World War veteran; the Basler company of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, devoted solely to rebuilding DC-3s; the Moss family of Florida, owners of the last Sleeper sold, which they want to restore; a workshop that rebuilds engines with wartime spare parts; and a Berlin group preparing a former airlift aircraft to fly with passengers.

Douglas conceived it as an aircraft with day seats and night berths, and American Airlines was its first customer. With three refuelling stops, the journey between the two US coasts came to about 15 hours. Other airlines eventually fitted up to 35 passengers. In 1936 Swissair preferred it to the Ju 52 and became Douglas's first European customer. When the United States entered the war in 1941, civilian DC-3s were requisitioned and converted into C-47 transports. On D-Day, 850 aircraft dropped 17,000 paratroopers in a first wave and towed cargo gliders. Veteran Ed Shames recounts the jump. In 1948 the aircraft sustained the Berlin Airlift, with 300 British Dakotas and pilots such as Gail Halvorsen, who dropped sweets on small parachutes. From 1964, in Vietnam, it became an armed gunship nicknamed Puff the Magic Dragon.

About 16,000 examples were built in ten years. Its two 14-cylinder double-row radial engines together produce 2,400 hp. Judy's aircraft needs all 14 cylinders replaced, at a cost of about $50,000. The C-47 "That's All, Brother," whose take-off on 6 June 1944 was captured by the first newsreels, was rediscovered at Basler some 70 years later and passed to an American foundation. Basler now offers turboprop versions with a modern cockpit. The Alfred Wegener Institute operates two, including Polar 6, to measure Arctic ice thickness: in summer it went from about 2.20 m in 2001 to roughly half that.