Flying the DC3

[tinpis]

Interesting snippets Roll Call Q-Z

[Old 'Un]

Ah, yes

Was fortunate enough to be given about an hour's 'play' in the right-hand seat.

I found the DC3 to be responsive without being twitchy and pretty forgiving of minor heavy-handedness. About an hour was long enough to get a reasonable initial seat-of-the-pants feel of the machine.

But, I guess, like any woman, she would give a really demanding, oafish, pilot a very hard time. On my day-in-the-sun she was a real 'lady' to me. (Sorry ladies, chivalry is still alive.)

It took me at least a week to start to lose the grin.

Another thing to cross off my "bucket" list.

Le Vieux

[Fris B. Fairing]

For info on extant DC-3s in Australia & NZ

Updates are always welcome. Sadly, regular reports are few and far between since Al Bovelt passed away.

Rgds

[Mach E Avelli]

Here's one for the greenies. Churchill is small town up on Hudson Bay in Canada. In winter when the bay freezes over, the polar bears used to come to town looking for food. Maybe they still do? Anyway, these furry critters are not quite as cute as they look in your local zoo when encountered roaming up the main street as one staggers back to the car from the pub.
So, in the interests of conservation of both sides of the potential food-chain, the rangers would hit them with tranquillizer darts and somehow get them into cages. I never saw that part. When they had four bears in four cages, they would load them onto our DC3 and accompany us to whatever frozen lake they wanted us to land on.
Somehow the rangers had the sleeping potion adjusted so that the bears would be awake, groggy, hungover and highly pissed-off by the time we landed. Getting the first one out wasn't too hard, as it was just a case of opening the cargo doors, raising the cage gate, prodding the bear in the bum and he/she would shamble out onto the ice and slope off. But then the cage had to be put out to make room for the next one to be slid aft to the door. Second bear out, second cage out etc until eventually there would be four bears out and three cages to be retrieved. By then the bears would be wide awake and sometimes they would take an interest in us as we hauled the cages back up. Meantime the ranger would sit on the wing with his dart gun to cover us, but our concern was how quick the darts would work. He also had a gun, but being a typical greenie, we did wonder whether he would actually use it.
They always tagged the bears and it was not unusual for a tagged bear to turn up back at Churchill within a couple of weeks, looking for another ride in the DC3.

[Jabawocky]

Awwwww...........that would make them Air Bears

[Wingnuts]

The DC3 Hangar

For a wealth of flying the DC3 stories and info, from Check Lists, Flight Training (including how to taxi), Technical Data to an Operating Cost Analysis, check out this site:

The DC-3 Hangar on douglasdc3.com DC3 C47 C-47

[sundaun]

Fossils

A lifetime ago, f--rting in the cockpit after "cracking" th side window! Changing hdg with massive skids generated by the A/P D.G.! Sarting both using wobble pump and crossfeed, take-off roll commenced just as F/O "climbed" into seat! Departed GKA once without the "hostie", tower called us back to pick her up!! Pax unperturbed. Optic & I doing a MAG to Manus with HLS pax (44 side-saddle) admiring reef fauna & marinelife at close proximity with both selected to the aux (3 tanker) and running it dry, never seen Optic move like it, reckon I got 3000psi out of that wobble pump at same time! I can still remember the CP (assy) calcs, to ETP @ 75 imp gal per hr, then 1 gal per mile out or home (it used 115 gal/p/h @ 115 kts with meto power on remaining engine) Only 2 mishaps I can recall,F.K. shutdown one sth of Gilluwe "between layers" with a load of explosives one day MAG-Mendi & I pondered who the new female pilot was, Frank,s voice contralto.He landed safely. R.C. took to the barret at WDA after a drag link broke on left gear. Pieces of that aircraft were there until recent times.G.O.R. also bent a couple of props at Wabag wheeling one onto a steep rise in the strip. Ferried old MAE POM - KWAJ - HNL - Oakland in more recent times, no GPS then, only Loran C, took 46 hrs stick! A/P u/s. Bit of an Ansett/TAA PNG get together New Farm Q'ld 17th Oct 09 contact [email protected] or Jan on [email protected] I'll go get that hostie from GKA and bring her along!!

[dogcharlietree]

Thought I'd throw this in again.

Now before you flame me, the aircraft was empty and I've only done this a couple of times.
Wheeler landing with full flaps. Slowed down with brakes, little power on, tail still up in flying position, slowed to taxi speed (tail still up) and turned off runway onto taxiway (tail still up), taxied a short distance and then GENTLY lowered the tail as I came to a stop.
Even the tower operator stopped mid-sentence.
Don't flame me. But it does look good. Power against brakes

[Wingnuts]

Flying the Tail

Would that be stick forward and use prop wash over the elevator to ‘fly the tail’?
Also impressive is the ‘one wheeler’.

[Ex FSO GRIFFO]

LUVLY SHOT........

Reminds me of my 'training days' in Chippies....and that was a 'normal' ldg for moi.....

[Chuck Ellsworth]

Great thread guys, the DC3 is my second favorite airplane.

Got my start flying them in northern Canada and the Arctic with Austin Airways and at the same time got my start on my favorite airplane that Austin Airways also operated on their routes.

Here is a picture of my two favorite airplanes taken in Holland, I had just landed and parked the DC3 and only had to walk over to my favorite one to head back up flying.

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e3...ifiKate028.jpg

[A37575]

Here is a picture of my two favorite airplanes

Is that my imagination or does the Dakota have a pointy nose in that picture? Weather radar perhaps?

[Chuck Ellsworth]

No it is just the paint job and the lighting.

Here is another picture of her.

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e3...P1010045-1.jpg

[First_Principal]

Wingnut that looks somewhat like my first attempt at landing the Dak! I did get better but by all accounts it was an an impressive bounce...

Now if I may be excused for hi-jacking this thread a little in order to keep a DC3 in the air I wonder if anyone knows of a P&W engine with some time left on it anywhere in Australasia? Serious question, if you do would you please PM me?

Thanks, FP.

[dogcharlietree]

With all due respect CE, I agree with A37... I think it has a modified nose cone.
Here is a piccy of what original DC-3 nosecones look like;
http://www.al-airliners.be/b-c/bia/bia-dc-3.jpg

[Chuck Ellsworth]

dogcharlietree I spoke to soon, you are correct the nose on that DC3 has been modified.

I'm getting old and having trouble finding my dick so making a mistake like that does not surprise me.

I'm sitting here trying to remember if it had weather radar in it and can't for the life of me remember because I only flew that airplane once, ferried it about a hundred miles.

I do recall it had a very nice modern instrument panel with GPS in it.

For what ever it is worth I have more time on DC3's than the PBY.

[dogcharlietree]

A very good friend of mine, who endorsed me on the DC-3 (had something like 14,000hours on type) also sank a PBY at Daru, PNG. He thought he hit a croc on landing on the water and the nosegear doors ripped open and down she went.

[Chuck Ellsworth]

If he hit a croc. with the nose gear doors it would have to have been coming off the step as the airplane slowed down.

When landing on water the nose gear doors are well clear of the water until the speed drops off...unless there are large waves present.

In any event your friend is a very lucky person to have survived tearing the nose gear doors off a pby during a landing on water.

[Fantome]

Dog charlie - was that John Simmler by any chance, in his TAA days in PNG?

Chuck - if you can't find it first go then there's probably little risk you'll be calling it a poor judge of character. Which is what Doug Muir used to say of his. There was a quack patching Doug up once after some minor calamity who said to him that there must be only one unscarred part of his battered old body, to which Doug said not so. When Doug was a little tadger on the farm at Maitland he was pissing on the rooster through the chicken wire. Silly little twerphead neally had his pecker pecked off.

Which all has SFA with the delights of muscling round the traps or the circuit in the wheelhouse of your Dak, whatever the weather. (Only sooks complain of wet trousers.) My endorsement was on the one CSIRO had for cloud physics, VH- R squared alpha. Everything felt JUST RIGHT from first encounter. First go was L seat SYD-Tamworth on a beautiful summer's morning, with LR (Licence Renewal) Jackson doing the honours. Easing her round on arrival onto a right base 12, sliding over the fence and holding off, holding off for a tail low wheeler seems like yesterday, the sensation is that lasting. (More so than first solo).

Some of the best PNG DC3 stories are in 'Balus' by James Sinclair. A classic book all the way through. (I recently taped a chat with Ron Roberts, QF, who did a lot of time on Cats in PNG and who features in 'Balus'. Fantastic tales of battling the hazards on the Fly, like whole tree trunks floating down ready to knock a float off, which happened to Ron. He saved the ship on that occasion.)

[dogcharlietree]

Dog charlie - was that John Simmler by any chance, in his TAA days in PNG?

It was Terry Blyth in WWC. I think still associated with TAA at the time. Not sure though.
46495 (c/n 1859) to civil registry as N94574, then to Trans Australia Airlines as VH-WWC. Swung on landing in crosswind at Oriomo River estuary, Papua Apr 26, 1962. Hull damaged and aircraft sank. 11 occupants uninjured.