DC-3 stuff

[WH904]

Does anybody know any possible links to old photos of the DC-3, particularly factory shots, or early airline stuff?

I've found some on the net but it's surprising how little there is. Loads of present-day/recent photos but older stuff? Nope.

I'd love to know if any of the Douglas archive images have survived anywhere beyond the greedy claws of Boeing. I can't believe how much archive material they're sat on that has nothing to do with Boeing, but can you access it all? Nope, not without a fat wallet. I'm flying Airbus in future! :)

[con-pilot]

Here you go, hope this helps.

The DC-3 Hangar on douglasdc3.com DC3 C47 C-47 (http://www.douglasdc3.com/)

Here is a photo of the DC-3 I flew in the late 70s/early 80s.

http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c246/con-pilot/12-26-2007_016.jpg

[Fantome]

In the Qantas archive in Sydney there are many good photos of their DC-3s taken from 1945 to 1960 when TAA took over the fleet from the national carrier.

You would have to fork out a small airfare, Brisbane to Sydney return, were you to ask me to supply your needs. There is no other way of accessing that archive except by personal visit, first having established your bona fides.



I can't believe how much archive material they're sat on

watch it old son . . . . you who had your two bobs' worth recently on the
importance of being earnest about spelling.

[Fantome]

Here are three pics from the Ed Coates Collection, an online source of thousands of fascinating old photographs of good old Orstralian aeroplanes.


VH-EAP Douglas DC3C-S1C3G (c/n 12873)

http://www.edcoatescollection.com/ac1/austcl/QantasFleet/VH-EAP.jpg

This DC-3 has been restored by the Qantas Founders Museum at Longreach, Queensland and
painted in the airline's original livery. .These lovely color shots were taken by Ken Watson in 2010.
Formerly A65-44 it carried the call sign VHCIA during WW II. Civilianized in June 1948, it was
re-registered VH-EBY(2) in July 1957. When sold by Qantas in 1960 it went to TAA for their
New Guinea Sunbird Services as VH-SBG.. It was then registered in PNG, initially as P2-SBG
and then P2-ANP (in 1975).. Sold to J.J. Ford III in 1981, it was registered N5590A, but returned
to the Australian register the next year as VH-BPL for Air Queensland (carrying on the Bush Pilots
series of regos). A freighter by this time, it was withdrawn from use at Cairns when Air Queensland
ceased operations. It then had a series of owners until acquired in 1996 by John.D. Williams of
Cambridge, Tasmania, who kindly donated it to the Museum. At the foot of the page is a rare
image of -EAP over the Owen Stanley Range, New Guinea in the late 1940s from the collection
of Hugo van de Garde who acquired some of the photographs of the late Dutch aviation journalist
Hugo Hooftman.

http://www.edcoatescollection.com/ac1/austcl/QantasFleet/VH-EAP3.jpg

http://www.edcoatescollection.com/ac1/austcl/QantasFleet/VH-EAP4.jpg

[MX Trainer]

Have you had a look here??

The DC-3 Hangar on douglasdc3.com DC3 C47 C-47 (http://www.douglasdc3.com/)


Mx

[old,not bold]

Al Ayn, 1971, scheduled service from/to DXB.

The handsome, commanding figure watching proceedings is the Air Traffic Controller, marshaller, baggage, cargo 'n mail sorter and loader, check-in clerk and passenger escort, RFFS, airstrip manager, general dogsbody, usw. GF had an old Landrover, kept in Al Ayn, which was driven to the strip for each turn-round. There were no buildings, but there was a BP windsock and the strip was marked with white-painted rocks.

The aircraft could easily be G-AMRA, last seen a few years ago at Coventry with Air Atlantique, but I'm not guaranteeing that. If not, it might be the one now in the museum at Sharjah.

http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff141/picshooter/AlAynDC3.jpg

[Ian Burgess-Barber]

Get yourself a copy of 'The Douglas DC-3' by the late, and very great, Captain Len Morgan - part of his Famous Aircraft Series - published by Arco Publishing Company, Inc. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 64-7851 original price 2.95 USD.

IanBB

[Fantome]

ahhhh...........what a man was he. . . . .. his monthly magazine column VECTORS that was essential and compulsive reading. Len retired off the 747 with BRANIFF, an airline he often wrote about in glowing terms. He then bought himself a 172. And that was good enough for him, to pop off and visit his many colleagues scattered widely across the United States of America, to gaze out the window and reflect upon the wonder and the beauty of the slowly unrolling landscape.

In his book THE DOUGLAS DC-3 there is a marvelous piece he entitled WHEN THEY WRITE ABOUT US.

What will they say about us when the history books are written five hundred years from now? What will the scholar of that day think of our arts, our aspirations, our social system, our effect on the long course of human history? When the time comes to sum up our era in a single book, what will this book report?

I like to think that we Americans are as exciting a crowd as ever lived under one flag and that history will regard us in a more kindly light than we are now prone to regard ourselves. More good things may be said between the covers of "Twentieth Century Americans" than we imagine. For instance, I can visualise the history of 2464, after much study of whatever record survives of our national accomplishment, exclaiming "By George! , (or its twentieth century equivalent), those Americans were tremendous commercial airmen!"

He's not likely to pay tribute to our air weapons for they have sometimes been inferior to those devised by our allies and our enemies. But if he feels compelled to write a paragraph or two about American contribution to air commerce, it will be only because we deserve it. As President Johnson recently put it ,"..... the British dominated the seas and led the world and we have dominated the air and have been the leader of the Free World since we established that dominance."

Since the earliest days of serious airline development our transport aircraft and our system of commercial air operation have led the rest of the world, rarely challenged and never surpassed. In this corner of modern achievement we take second place to no one. This bit of history was for a number of years written largely by one man, Brooklyn-born Donald Douglas, who built the world's finest airliners in his California factory. It was his DC-2 that set the pace and his DC-3 that set the standard for the rest of the world to emulate.

It is entirely possible that that the term, "DC-3", will appear in histories after the names of all other aircraft are forgotten, so pronounced has been the effect of this remarkable machine. "Someone should write a book about 'The Three' ", is a remark often heard. Much has already been said, including a book of lore by two admiring Army pilots, but what is needed is the entire story, the complete civil and military record, between one set of covers. This could run to a number of thick volumes without any need for padding; the least the subject deserves is one large, well-illustrated book to cover the main points.

One problem is that the DC-3 story is far from complete. A recent estimate is that 3,300 are still flying. Until this number dwindles to a handful, writers are not likely to give the idea much attention and by then many of the details will have been lost. One of the top four American airlines retains in its files today no more than three photographs of the ship that made it great.

What would be the central theme of a researcher with all the facts at his disposal? Is there a single feature of the story that is paramount?

It is my feeling, as an interested observer during the entire lifespan of the DC-3, that it is the most important aircraft ever produced in quantity. I reflect not on the long list of individual jobs the plane has successfully performed in war and peace, but upon the overall effect it has had on modern civilisation. Many splendid airliners have helped to build the global air transportation we enjoy today, but it was nearly always the DC-3 that first showed what could be done. More than any other single type, this one took air travel out of the experimental stages and made it safe, dependable and profitable. With it the military first learned to move men by air in numbers worth talking about and materials in sufficient quantities to win a battle.

Our airways system and world-wide network of airports was established when the DC-3 showed the shape of the approaching Air Age. This aircraft, more than any other, was the trainer by which pilots the world over learned to fly to a timetable in all kinds of weather and over all manner of terrain, the tool with which young airline managements learned to make money and attract bank loans, the glamorous vehicle that lured countless timid souls into making that first flight.

The giant airliners and cargo planes that serve us now are but developments of Mr Douglas's trim little 21-passenger flying machine. Air transportation today is but a logical extension of the ideas set forth when DC-3s first went into service in the 1930s. The DC-3 is the plane that's been everywhere and done everything, the "plane that won't wear out", the machine no one was able to replace, the remarkable device that goes on and on, outliving its successors, doing the job as well as ever. Summed up, this is the aircraft that taught the world to fly.

[MX Trainer]

Some interesting info here: The DC-3 Story (http://www.centercomp.com/dc3/1902.html)

It looks like they didn't even bother to take photos of the first flight!!!

Hard to believe.

Mx

[l.garey]

Old, not Bold: re your post number 6, the DC3 you picture at Al Ayn is certainly not the one at the Al Mahatta Museum in Sharjah. Although it is marked as G-AMZZ it is really C-47A c/n 12254 42-92452,FZ669,C-GCXE,HI-522,N688EA. It still has a pencilled "C-GCXE" on the cockpit roof.

Those white stones, and a huge white arrow at each end of the runway, were still there at Al Ain until about five years ago, but went when the site was used for housing. I have some photos of the last arrow.

Laurence

[A30yoyo]

Charles W. Cushman Photograph Collection >> Results (http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/cushman/results/result.do?query=subject:%22Airplanes%22&action=browse)

https://www.google.com/search?q=united+airlines+1938&q=source%3Alife&tbm=isch

https://www.google.com/search?q=la+guardia&q=source%3Alife&tbm=isch

https://www.google.com/search?q=united+airlines+1939&q=source%3Alife&tbm=isch#q=united+airlines+1938&tbm=isch

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=KLM+DC-3&es_sm=93&tbm=isch

The DOUGLAS


"SLEEPER" DST-144 NC16007 Page of the Davis-Monthan Airfield Register Website (http://www.dmairfield.com/airplanes/NC16007/index.html)

https://www.google.com/search?q=douglas+cargo+plane&q=source%3Alife&tbm=isch

https://www.google.com/search?q=panama+cargo+trip&q=source%3Alife&tbm=isch

https://www.google.com/search?q=brazilian+bases&q=source%3Alife&tbm=isch

https://www.google.com/search?q=Pan+American+Flight+to+Cairo&q=source%3Alife&tbm=isch

Photo Search Results | Airliners.net (http://www.airliners.net/search/photo.search?aircraft_genericsearch=%3D%22douglas+dc-3+%28c-47%2F53%2F117%2Fr4d%2Fskytrain%2Fdakota%29%22&airlinesearch=&countrysearch=&specialsearch=&daterange=1930+TO+1939&keywords=&range=&sort_order=photo_id+desc&page_limit=30&thumbnails=)

Photo Search Results | Airliners.net (http://www.airliners.net/search/photo.search?aircraft_genericsearch=%3D%22douglas+dc-3+%28c-47%2F53%2F117%2Fr4d%2Fskytrain%2Fdakota%29%22&airlinesearch=&countrysearch=&specialsearch=&daterange=1940+TO+1949&keywords=&range=&sort_order=photo_id+desc&page_limit=120&thumbnails=)

http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/8f8ac5329108b9a7_large
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/0a567563853c5e1c_large
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/514591bd45a07f56_large
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/aa23dee5b9ca3ed3_large
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/8e66a6214590281a_large
http://www.gstatic.com/hostedimg/a605885ecd36f54e_large

and last not least :-)
Flickr Search: DC-3 (http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=78093377@N06&q=DC-3)

[Dak Man]

Good stuff here

Gateway to Douglas DC-3 pages (http://www.ruudleeuw.com/dc3_gate.htm)

[cyflyer]

Does anybody know any possible links to old photos of the DC-3, particularly factory shots, or early airline stuff?
Yes, ebay. There's always loads of DC3 photos, and you never know whats going to crop up.

[pigboat]

You don't see too many like this one any more.

https://scontent-b-lga.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/s403x403/1236867_10151538137947115_615791500_n.jpg

The last one I flew had R-2000 engines. To be honest this one started life as a C-53.

http://www.1000aircraftphotos.com/Transports/898.jpg

[scotbill]

Seen at an air display in Bangor Maine in the 90s. Competitor in the 'biggest floats ever' class.
Does anyone know how it handled - particularly in the engine out case?

http://i1198.photobucket.com/albums/aa453/scotbill/historical/65e68b59-07d3-4f1a-a3b1-018d35f3230a_zpsc44648ad.jpg

[struikaviation]

Hello,

I am member of the Dutch classic airlines,and have several photos from DC-3.Maybe i can help you?