The Grand Old Gooney Bird
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RIVIA QUESTION: What trans- T port aircraft designed to carry The DC-3 is fifty years old twenty-one passengers has hauled more than 100 and has been trans- this month and still flying. It formed into a fighter, bomber, am- may be immortal. phibian, glider, tow plane, laundry, classroom, crop duster, flying loud- speaker, hospital, wire layer, com- mand post, mobile home, chicken coop, restaurant, fire fighter, and chapel? ANSWER: The Douglas DC-3, also known in the Air Force as the C-47 The (plus other designations) or Sky- train and in the Navy as the R4D. The British called it the Dakota. The airlines referred to it simply as Grand Old the Three; their pilots called it Old Methuselah, Placid Plodder, Dowa- ger Duchess, Doug, or the Dizzy Three. But the name most com- Gooney Bird monly applied to this Grand Old Lady of the Skies is Gooney Bird, named after the albatross, a seabird known for its endurance and ability BY C. V. GLINES to fly great distances. AIR FORCE Pagazine / December 1985 14. Most readers of AIR FORCE Mag- continent in the world, once broke The letter was sent to the presi- azine will not need an introduction the coast-to-coast speed record, dents of the Curtiss-Wright, Ford, to the Gooney. It received its bap- and set nineteen other national and Martin, Consolidated, and Douglas. tism of fire during World War II, international speed records. It was Donald W. Douglas, Sr., head of the proved its durability during the Ko- the first aircraft to land at both poles company that built several mail rean War, and demonstrated its un- and, according to C. R. Smith, for- planes and the famous Douglas usual versatility during the Vietnam mer president of American Airlines, World Cruisers that had circumnav- War. And while it is not in the mili- was "the first airplane that could igated the globe in 1924, later called tary inventory anymore, it is still make money just by hauling passen- the Frye letter "the birth certificate plying the world's airways and gers." of the DC ships" because it spawned doing its duty in other countries in The progenitor of the ubiquitous a new era in aircraft design for peace and war as it has always done. Gooney Bird was the DC-1, which Douglas that took advantage of new came about through a specification aeronautical developments then Golden Anniversary issued by Jack Frye, president of coming into being. It may surprise you that the DC-31 Transcontinental and Western Air Instead of three engines, Douglas C-471R4D celebrates its fiftieth (now Trans World Airlines) on Au- engineers came up with a twin-en- birthday this month. It was on De- gust 2, 1932. The letter asked for gine design. It would be a low-wing cember 17, 1935, the thirty-second bids for an all-metal monoplane to monoplane with semimonocoque anniversary of the Wright brothers' be manned by a crew of two, with a fuselage and wings with a then-new famous first flights, that the first maximum gross weight of 14,200 "honeycomb" construction. The DC-3 took to the air to begin a saga pounds, a range of 1,080 miles at 145 wheels would retract into the engine of accomplishment unmatched by miles per hour, and the capacity to nacelles for better streamlining. any other aircraft design in the carry twelve passengers. The lucky Three-bladed Hamilton propellers world. It has not only filled the roles bidder would receive an order for whose pitch could be controlled by mentioned above but has also "ten or more trimotor transport the pilot inside the cockpit would be served in every country on every planes." attached to 710-horsepower Wright Whether in civilian livery or warpaint, the Gooney Bird has done yeoman-like work on every conti- nent over the last fifty years. AIR FORCE Magazine December 1985 On December 17,1935, this first of more than 10,000 other Gooney Birds took to the air for an hour-and-forty-minute flight around the Santa Monica, Calif., airport. A DST (Douglas Sleeper Transport) version of the DC-3, this aircraft was later "drafted" and designated as a C-49E. The plane crashed in October 1942. Cyclone air-cooled radial engines. 4, 1933. When it was obvious that designation—the DC-3. When the The cabin would seat passengers in the Douglas design was meeting all 185th DC-2 or a military variant was two rows of six passengers each. the specifications, TWA placed or- pushed out of the hangar, the first There would be a small galley and a ders for twenty-five more with DC-3 was rolled out beside it. Three lavatory, the latter a "first" for air- slightly altered structural changes. models of the new version were of- line passenger comfort. The cabin The fuselage was to be longer and fered: a twenty-one-passenger day would be heated and noise-insu- wingspread wider so that fourteen plane, a fourteen-passenger luxury lated. In the cockpit, the two pilots passengers could be carried. The DST "Skysleeper," and the four- would have the new gyroscopic in- Douglas engineers saw that they teen-passenger "club-car-of-the- struments and Sperry automatic pi- were really designing a new aircraft air" "Skylounge." American Air- lot, making the DC-1 the first com- and labeled it the DC-2. lines placed the first quantity order mercial plane to be equipped with There was only one DC-1 built and, on June 25, 1936, became the such devices. because the DC-2 immediately out- first airline in the world to put the When the Douglas design was dated it. The first DC-2 was accept- new plane into service. Shortly submitted to TWA, Frye asked ed by TWA on May 22, 1934. Others thereafter, Donald W. Douglas re- Charles A. Lindbergh, then a con- followed, and one of them was pur- ceived the coveted Collier Trophy sultant, what he thought about it. chased by KLM Royal Dutch Air- from President Roosevelt for having Lindbergh liked it, but recom- lines. Christened Uiver, it was en- developed "the most outstanding mended that TWA specify that the tered in the 1934 MacRobertson twin-engined transport plane." This aircraft had to prove it could take off Trophy Race, better known as the plane, the President said, "by rea- with a full load from any point on London-to-Melbourne Derby. To son of its high speed, economy, and the TWA system on one engine! everyone's surprise, the DC-2 fin- quiet passenger comfort, has been ished second in the 11,000-mile generally adopted by transport lines The DC-1 Appears competition to a souped-up British throughout the United States. Its Douglas engineers thought they fighter plane. The result was a sud- merit has been further recognized could meet this latest requirement, den interest by the world's airlines by its adoption abroad, and its influ- so a contract was signed on Septem- in this transport, which had not only ence on foreign design is already ber 20, 1932. On June 22, 1933, a raced the distance without difficulty apparent." sleek, shiny craft sixty feet long but had nonchalantly carried mail with a wingspread of eighty-five feet and three passengers. Air Corps Interest was rolled out into the bright sun- While orders for DC-2s poured While the airlines found they light. On July 1, 1933, the DC-1 (for into the Douglas factory at Santa could make money with the DC-3, Douglas Commercial, first model) Monica, Calif., American Airlines the war clouds gathering in Europe made its initial flight and began a prepared a new set of specifications prompted the US Army Air Corps series of tests that culminated in a that called for a passenger capacity to study all types of aircraft. Ex- successful single-engine takeoff of twenty-one. This meant another perts pored over the DC designs and from Winslow, Ariz., on September stretch to the fuselage and a new made exhaustive flight tests of the 96 AIR FORCE Magazine / December 1985 DC-2 and -3. The DC-1 was bor- out that the Air Corps designated which, although a little wing heavy, rowed from TWA briefly to test the the major model as the C-47. How- was flown away. Naturally, it was Sperry autopilot; 1,600-gallon fuel ever, more changes were made, re- called the DC-21/2. tanks were installed, which tripled sulting in a few more variants with • Another badly shot-up Chinese its range. more designations: C-48, C-49, DC-3 with more than 1,000 bullet Eighteen DC-2s, modified to Air C-50, C-51, C-52, C-53, and C-68. holes was patched up with canvas Corps specifications, were ordered Of these, only the C-49 and the C-53 cut from a missionary's awning. by the Air Corps and designated were produced in quantity. The only Capt. Harold Sweet flew it with six- C-33s. New specifications were or- difference between the C-47 and ty-one refugees from Chungking to dered, resulting in new designa- these two was that the C-49 was the a military base in India. In flight, tions: XC-32, C-32A, and C-34. "Skysleeper" version of the DC-3 many of the patches came off. Sweet While these were being tested and and the C-53 had a wide door for use recalled, "We could hear an eerie the DC-3s were being produced to as the paratroop model.