Douglas DC-3: El Avión más Influyente del Siglo XX

Video from the channel Pasión Aérea about Douglas DC-3, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 11:41. Language: Spanish. Video type: Documentary.

History, technical characteristics and legacy of the Douglas DC-3, with its military variants and its role in Colombian aviation.

In 1932 Transcontinental and Western Air was looking for an answer to United Airlines' Boeing 247, limited to 10 passengers. Douglas, with a team led by its vice-president of engineering, Arthur E. Raymond, built the DC-1, a low-wing twin-engine aircraft with 12 seats of which only one example was made, flying in July 1933. TWA then ordered 20 aircraft with 900 HP engines instead of 700 and 14 seats: the DC-2, of which 200 units were built. American Airlines asked for a faster version with berths, the Douglas Sleeper Transport, with a wider, more cylindrical fuselage; its 21-seat daytime version was the DC-3, which flew on 17 December 1935. Douglas sold 400 to the major airlines of the time.

From 1941 many were converted to military use as the C-47, C-53 and R4D, also known as the Dakota, which served again in Vietnam as transport, medical evacuation and for paratrooper drops.

Wingspan of 29 m, height of 5 m, two Pratt & Whitney 14-cylinder radial engines of 1,200 horsepower, 21 to 32 passengers or 3 tonnes of cargo, a range of about 2,575 km and a cruising speed of about 333 km/h. With the landing gear retracted, the wheels still protrude about 40 cm, allowing it to land without deploying it. 16,079 units were built: 607 civilian, 10,048 C-47 and C-53, 4,937 Soviet Lisunov Li-2 and 487 in Japan. Civilian production ended in 1942 and military production in 1945; the 1949 Super DC-3 remained at five examples. In 1998 more than 400 were still in commercial service. Avianca operated as many as 42. On 9 March 2019 a Láser DC-3 crashed on the San José del Guaviare–Villavicencio route, killing 14, and on 26 August 2020 an Aliansa aircraft ran off the runway at Jorge Enrique González Torres airport.