Dokumentation Flugzeug - Der DC3 eine Erfindung für sich [2015]

Video from the channel Kemal Kilicdarevladi about Douglas DC-3, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 39:29. Language: German. Video type: Documentary.

A German documentary on the Douglas DC-3, from its conception in the early 1930s to its military career as the C-47 and its role in the Berlin Airlift. It combines archive footage with testimony from pilots, a former TWA stewardess and a Berlin woman who lived through the blockade as a teenager.

In the early 1930s flying was expensive, noisy and uncomfortable, and often dangerous. In 1931 a TWA aircraft crashed in Kansas, killing, among others, coach Knute Rockne, which shook the industry. Boeing responded with the 247, of which United Airlines ordered 60 units, leaving its rivals without access to the model. In 1932 Jack Frye of TWA asked Donald Douglas for an aircraft able to compete with it. Engineer Arthur Raymond designed the twin-engined DC-1 even though TWA had demanded three engines, and the airline's advisor, Charles Lindbergh, doubted it could fly on just two. More than 200 tests in Caltech's wind tunnel corrected its instability with a slight wing sweep and a fairing between wing and fuselage. The DC-1 led in 1934 to the 14-seat DC-2. Afterwards, an order for ten aircraft with berths placed by C. R. Smith of American Airlines required widening the fuselage. Swapping the berths for seats gave birth to the DC-3.

According to the documentary, the DC-3 used only 3% more fuel than its predecessor while carrying seven more passengers, making it the first profitable commercial aircraft. It cut the flight between the two US coasts from 25 to 15 hours. By 1939, 350 units had left the factory, and around 80% of American commercial aircraft were DC-2s or DC-3s. Converted into the C-47 (Dakota in the Royal Air Force), with a cargo door and reinforced floor, by 1944 one rolled off the line every 34 minutes. On the eve of D-Day it carried some 13,000 American paratroopers towards Normandy. During the Berlin Blockade, which began in June 1948, the C-47 carried 3.2 tonnes per flight. On 25 July one crashed onto a house in Friedenau, killing both its pilots. The blockade ended in May 1949. The aircraft later served in Korea and Vietnam.