Douglas DC-3 Pack 10

Build Douglas TM DC-3 TM 10 ™ www.model-space.com Build Douglas DC-3 Pack 10 Published in the UK by De Agostini UK Ltd, Battersea Studios 2, 82 Silverthorne Road, Visual Identity System | Officially licensedLondon product identity SW8 mark 3HE Page Published in the USA by De Agostini Publishing USA, Inc., 915 Broadway, Suite 609, ™ Boeing OLP identity mark | Size The decline of the DC-3 New York, NY 10010 The demise of the twin-engined Ideally, thePackaged OLP mark should appear by inContinuo ratio of 1:2 Creative, 39-41 North Road, 223 of the licensee’s logo or lettermark and no smaller Douglas™ was not immediate. than the minimumLondon sizes shown N7 below 9DP for print and web applications. Having become an icon during the p223-230 images from the Giorgio Apostolo Collection colonial wars of the 1950s, when All rights reserved © 2015 it was mainly used for transporting soldiers and materials or to drop Items may vary from those shown. Not suitable for children under the age of 14. paratroops, it was subsequently Boeing licensingThis identity product mark — dimensional is not a toy and is not designed or intended for use in play. employed widely in developing Minimum size 13Produced mm (0.5 in, 3 picas) under license. PAN AM logos are trademarks of OFFICIALLY LICENSED PRODUCT countries. Some DC-3s are Pan American World Airways, Inc. Produced under license. Boeing, Douglas, Boeing Airplane Company, DC-3, OFFICIALLY Minimum size 54 pixels (web) still operating today. LICENSED OFFICIALLY 247, Douglas World Cruiser, and the distinctive Boeing logos, product markings LICENSED PRODUCT PRODUCT and trade dress are trademarks of The Boeing Company. ASSEMBLY GUIDE Completing the left wing Paints and 231 Constructing and cladding the outer modelling tools portion of the left wing. A comprehensive selection of modelling tools and paints (in all the colours you will need to complete your Douglas DC-3) is available from the Model Space website. www.model-space.com Boeing™ Corporate Identity Program Revision: July 26, 2004 www.model-space.com The decline of the DC-3 The decline of the DC-3 he advent of the jet and the decline T of the piston engine led to the gradual demise of the DC-3, but it did not disappear from the scene immediately. So many aircraft had been produced during World War II that the DC-3 continued to be a tempting alternative, especially in marginal markets where the versatility of the plane made up for its growing operational costs. As the major airlines phased out the twin-engined Douglas, it went into service again with small cargo and charter companies, and some DC-3s are still in use today. The same was true A US Air Force AC-47 flying above Vietnam. The minigun mounting support, with a gunner standing behind it, can be seen in the door of the cargo hatch. Controls fitted on the joystick enabled the pilot to fire all the on-board weapons at the same time or just some of them. It was still thought necessary to have a gunner among the crew, who could repair any damage that occurred or free the gun when it jammed. Build Douglas DC-3 223 of the military versions of the DC-3. Air between 1946 and 1954, the plane was of the 17th Airborne Engineers Regiment forces operated the C-47 for longer than used extensively for transporting troops and most of Airborne Group 1). The same civilian airlines flew the DC-3, although, and equipment, for dropping paratroops, aircraft were then used first to transport from the mid 1950s, they were relegated and in some cases for bombing missions, the equipment needed to build the base, to marginal duties and regions. after being suitably adapted. On the and after that, until 7 May 1954, to deliver morning of 20 November 1953, 65 C-47s supplies to the 20,000 or so men who were The last operational and 12 C-119s, in two successive waves, trapped there. deployments carried the first French forces deployed in After the withdrawal of the French Operation Castor over Dien Bien Phu (6th forces, the C-47 continued to be used in In the 1950s, the C-47 became one of Colonial Parachute Battalion, 2nd Battalion, Indochina, either by various national air the icons of colonial wars. In Indochina, 1st Light Infantry Parachute Regiment, parts forces (Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia), Tracer bullets in the sky above Saigon. The technology of rotating barrels provided a rate of fire ranging between 2,000 and 6,000 rounds per minute for each minigun of the AC-47, the effect of which earned the plane, already called ‘Spooky’, the nickname of ‘Puff, the Magic Dragon’. The firepower thus generated C-47s of the South Vietnamese air force (Viet could be used either to Nam Air Force – VNAF), in a photograph taken support the troops in in 1996. The Dakota played an important part in action on land or as intense the Indochina war, especially through the local saturation fire with which to air forces. Even in this theatre of war, it was destroy targets that were used mainly for logistical support, but it was difficult to reach. also sometimes deployed in combat missions, particularly in its AC-47 version. 224 Build Douglas DC-3 The decline of the DC3 The AC-47 ‘Spooky’ he first flight of the AC-47, given the radio call sign ‘Spooky’ for its stealth and Taccuracy, dates back to 15 December 1964, when it took off from the Bien Hoa airbase in Vietnam. Its armament consisted of three 7.62mm miniguns – General Electric SUU- 11As – with a rate of fire of 6,000 rounds a minute. Its success in its first deployments led the USAF to buy a large number of these planes, derived from a conversion of the old C-47, within the year. In August 1965, the 4th Air Commando Squadron (ACS) set up at Tan Son Nhut airbase, became the first operational unit to be equipped with the new gunships; the 4th ACS also operated on the front line in Bien Hoa, Pleiku, Na Trang, Da Nang and Can Tho. In November, the unit received 16 aircraft, plus four more destined for ‘advanced conflict’ duties. In view of the scarcity of materials, the planes were equipped with two instead of three miniguns and sometimes, provisionally, with eight or 10 Browning machine guns instead of the miniguns. The increased availability of miniguns gradually rectified this anomaly, and two more squadrons of AC-47s (3rd and 5th ACS) were later created, which, The then Israeli Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion (fourth from the right in the front row), together with the 4th ACS, were part of the 14th Air Commando Wing (since August 1968, poses with a group of armed forces officials next to a C-47 of the Israeli Air Force (IAF). the Special Operations Wing). In all, some 53 C-47s were converted into flying gunships Having gone into service in 1948, the Dakota was only phased out of the IAF in 2000. by the USAF during the Vietnam War, of which 15 were lost between 17 December On 29 October 1956, 16 Dakotas of the IAF launched Operation Machbesh, part of 1965 and 5 September 1969. In that year, the ‘Spooky’ aircraft were gradually ceded to Israel’s Sinai Campaign (Operation Kadesh) during the Suez Crisis, dropping 400 men of the Vietnamese Air Force in the context of the policy of ‘Vietnamisation’ of the conflict the 890th battalion of the Airborne Brigade, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Rafael carried out by President Nixon. But the lesson of the AC-47 was not wasted, resulting ‘Raful’ Eitan, at the Egyptian lines in the Mitla Pass. The co-pilot of the lead aircraft in the in subsequent programmes such as Gunship II (AC-130, based on the Lockheed C-130 formation was Yael Rom, one of the first female pilots in the IAF. platform) and Gunship III (AC-119, based on the Fairchild C-119 platform). or, from the 1960s onwards, by the US R-1830-92, R-1830-90D and R-2000- rotating barrels and a high rate of fire, and, forces operating in the region. The US 4), these variants (known as the ‘electric from 1964 onwards, they were deployed Air Force (USAF), besides using it as a gooneys’) were designated respectively as very successfully in land attacks and close transport plane, also developed three EC-47N, EC-47P and EC-47Q. Still based air support (CAS). versions for electronic signals interception, on the C-47, the USAF also operated the The Middle East and southern Africa which were in use between 1965 and AC-47 gunship (‘Spooky’), fitted with three were two more war zones in the 1950s and 1975. Powered by various engines (P&W miniguns. These were machine guns with 1960s in which the C-47 was widely used. Build Douglas DC-3 225 A C-47 of the South African Air Force (SAAF) from after 1958. The SAAF took delivery of its first C-47s during World War II, and later acquired more from those phased out by the RAF. Together with El Salvador and Colombia, South Africa is one of the few countries that still have Dakotas in their air forces, used for electronic warfare, surveillance and transport. Some of the miniguns on board an AC-47. The weapons and their gun pods were produced by General Electric, and fired 7.62mm ammunition from six rotating barrels, activated electrically. The standard arrangement was to mount one gun in the cargo hatch and two in the rear windows, but there were also instances of aircraft in which a third gun was placed at a window instead of at the cargo door.

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