The Douglas DC-3: The First (Successful) Commercial Plane
Video from the channel Megaprojects about Douglas DC-3, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 17:47. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.
What it's about
Documentary about the Douglas DC-3, the commercial aircraft that made passenger air transport profitable, and its long civil and military career.
Historical context
In the 1930s, crossing the United States by air took more than a day and numerous stops. TWA commissioned Donald Douglas to build an aircraft to compete with United's Boeing 247, and that commission gave rise to the DC-2. At the request of American Airlines, which wanted a transcontinental aircraft with sleeping berths, Douglas enlarged it: wider, faster, with greater wingspan and ceiling. This was how the DC-3 came about, which first flew on 17 December 1935.
Key facts
It carried between 20 and 32 passengers, with Wright R-1820 Cyclone 9 radial engines in the civilian version and Pratt & Whitney R-1830 Twin Wasp in the military one, and it was the first airliner to sustain itself on ticket sales alone, without mail subsidies. As the C-47 (Skytrain or Dakota, nicknamed Gooney Bird) it took part in Operation Market Garden with more than 1,438 aircraft and supplied the surrounded troops at Bastogne in 1944. Japan built its own version, Nakajima's L2D. In Vietnam, the FC-47 "Spooky" gunship, with three 7.62 mm M134 miniguns, operated from December 1964 until it was replaced by the AC-130. Being unpressurized and flying below around 16,000 feet, it has held up well: more than 160 are still flying, and the oldest, a 1936 DST, is in Punta Gorda, Florida.