Originally Posted by
Mach E Avelli
As an anecdote, I have heard of a DC3 becoming airborne with the elevator gust lock still attached. The crew flew it to a successful landing using trim. Don't know whether fact or fiction, but believe it could be done in the right conditions.
I believe one case of a DC-3 taking off with the gust locks on and landing successfully occurred on December 27, 1984, perhaps out of Naples, Florida, with PBA (Provincetown-Boston Airline). The feds had given PBA their operating certificate back earlier in the month after an emergency revocation for shady practices like pencil whipping DC-3 type ratings and flying a YS-11 without a type rating.
Tragically, a PBA EMB-110 crashed in Jacksonville, Florida three weeks earlier with the loss of all 13 people on board so the gust lock incident received little notice outside the local area. The DC-3 gust lock takeoff is mentioned in this 1985 Inc. magazine article about the rise and fall of PBA which at one time was the largest commuter airline:
https://www.inc.com/magazine/19850301/1288.html