Damn pigboat, that was one hell of a story! If you tried that to day the best thing that would happen to would be to be shot down, unless one is really into third world jails.
I loved the small amount of time I got in the DC-3, about 250 hours.
When we bought our DC-3 I made a deal with the boss that it would be a VMC use aircraft only. No IFR flying as the aircraft was equipped with Collins FD-102 (yes, FD-102) Flight Directors, which really didn't work very well. there was one vacuum powered gyro that was mounted right in front of the throttles. One Friday night we had a trip scheduled from Oklahoma City (OKC) to Dallas Love Field (DAL). The boss wanted to take some friends down to Dallas for dinner in the DC-3. As luck would have it it was very marginal VFR that night both in Dallas and Oklahoma City. If I remember correctly it was about a 1,000 feet overcast in OKC and around 2,000 feet overcast in Dallas and good visibility both places, with conditions to improve to clear later in the evening; tops were about 5,000 feet.
So what the heck I thought, we'll just climb on top, cruise down to Dallas, still be able to shoot a visual approach and it should be clear when we come back. I talked to the boss about it, he agreed (naturally, he wasn't a pilot and really wanted to use the DC-3), so we load up about 12 folks and off we went.
Well there was only one problem with my clever plan. I neglected to inform the DC-3 of these operational details. We roll down the runway, takeoff and I swear to God the second we enter the clouds my FD-102 fails, the number one comm fails a few seconds later and the right engine starts backfiring. We feather the right engine, declare an emergency, get radar vectors back around to the runway and land.
The boss takes his friends to dinner in Oklahoma City and we go to the bar. The next morning we go out to the airport to try to figure out what is wrong with the aircraft. We start the right engine, works fine, mag check fine, full power run fine. The FD-102 on the left side works fine, number one comm works fine. I say "Well this is El Toro Poo Poo let's go fly this sucker and see what happens." We takeoff, course the weather is clear now, and fly around for two hours, nada, nothing at all, everything works just fine.
We land and I call the boss, he asks what was wrong with the DC-3, I reply nothing now, everything works fine, couldn't find anything wrong. He pauses for a while and says well I guess she showed us, no more flying in clouds in her, next time we'll use the jet if there are clouds. I replied, "Yes Sir, I agree."
And people say aircraft are just machines with no personality. HA!