The Douglas DC-3: The First (Successful) Commercial Plane 

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Legend has it, when they take the last Boeing 747 to the boneyard, a DC-3 will fly them home. The DC-3 will never die.

You forgot to mention about the dc3's being "refurbished" today. A company named Basler has been remaking dc3's with new turboprop engines, and modern glass cockpit instruments, being renamed BT-67. Once the work is done, the airframe has 0 hours on it and is basically brand new.

Error at 4:30 it used radial engines not turboprops although you can find some nowadays with turboprops retrofitted by Basler

4:34 Nice underside view. You may notice one engine closer to the fuselage. That difference is there to offset engine torque on take-off. The Dak (for Dakota in Canada and U.K.) is the epitome of the expression "If it looks right, it will fly right." It's a beautiful piece of work.

I flew the DC-3 for several years for Southern Air Transport. It was low and slow and loud to fly. And could be a handful to land in a strong crosswind. But it was a work horse and I'm very lucky to have flown it. My favorite old aircraft.

I love DC-3s! As a young child in the 1960s, I used to fly on them from our home in the Aleutian Islands to Anchorage Alaska - on Reeve Aleutian Airways. Reeve bought a number of surplus C-47s after WWII and converted them for combo use - freight and passengers. The sound of those big twin engines still reverberates in my ears over fifty years later. So happy to hear there are nearly 200 of these wonderful birds still flying today! Thanks for sharing

When I worked with the Canadian Airforce Reserves in he 80s we were still flying them. Loved flying in them.

It did not use a turbo prop engine. It used a radial engine. They are not the same. A turbo prop is basically a jet engine with a propeller. A radial is more similar to your car engine.

I flew in a DC-3 about 60 years ago. I'll never forget the sound, & the stewardess in her contemporary uniform, asking if anyone wanted "coffee, tea or milk" & offering chewing gum to the kids. A piece of history!

What made the DC-3 such a successful was it was truly the first airliner that could carry enough passengers to make a profit without a US Mail subsidy. For its day, the monocoque structural design and advanced aerodynamics was far ahead of every other airliner of its day. No wonder when American Airlines introduced this airliner in 1936 it marked the beginning of the end of train travel for USA transcontinental travel (lot of difference between three days from New York City to Los Angeles by train and 17 hours on a DC-3!).

colombian here, our armed forces still use the AC-47 in a modernized form, locally called Fantasma (Ghost) and a lot of smaller regional airlines use it as well

I'll never forget an old pilot in a documentary back in the '70's "It creaked, it groaned, the wings would wobble up and down in flight, but it flew, and flew, and flew"!

I very recently had an opportunity to fly in a DC-3 operated by Ken Borek during a trip to the Arctic. I actually couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the plane taxiing over in Eureka. I'd always thought DC-3s only existed in museums and history books!

The DC-3 is also one of the best sounding airplanes. Everything from start-up to takeoff and flying overhead. They just sound like you think a propeller plane should (also, radial engine, not turboprop which is why they sound so great).

I'm head of a team busy restoring a C47 in cape town, beautiful aircraft.

The engine was not turboprop originally but a radial "Wright R-1820 Cyclone". There were later conversion to Turboprop engines like "Rolls-Royce RB.53 Dart".

The best thing about this video is including a picture of “Whiskey 7”. Whiskey 7 was the lead C-47 of the Second Wave of the 82nd Airborne Division on St. Mere Église on June 6th, 1944. She now rests at the Geneseo Air Museum in Geneseo, Western New York, USA. I have seen her fly many times, including at the D-Day Conneaut event in Conneaut, Ohio for the 75th Anniversary of D-Day in 2019.

The DC-3 flew "in" the weather, not above it. It could be a very upchucking experience for at least half the passengers when most were very new to this modern, sometimes very "turbulent mode", of travel.

I am currently in the business of making aircraft parts. It is amazing how many pieces of equipment we have dating back to the 60's and before. As long as one is still flying, parts may come back to be fixed. Very few people makes resolvers any more, but they are essential. Our place is a museum to the 50's, 60's, 70's et all.

Back in 2016 or 2017 I flew on a DC3 between Yellowknife and Hay River. It was quite a fun experience

As someone born in the 80s I consider myself extremely lucky to have been on a DC-3 or technically the C-47. It was Canada Day in Ottawa and the Canadian Aviation Museum was running short tours onboard a C-47. The most extreme sense of joy and goosebumps kicked in when I heard those radial engines roar during take off. Truly memorable 🙂

My Grandfather flew to New Zealand from Australia in a DC3 in the 1950's - his only flight of his life. he passed away in 1980 at the age of 95.

It is amazing the Douglas produced one of the most loved & trusted Passenger Aircraft in the DC3 & one of the most feared in the DC10

Had the pleasure of flying in a "Warbird" DC3 in Auckland New Zealand, in a scenic flight over the city, about 30 years ago. This aircraft, ZK-DAK, was manufactured in 1944 and is still flying.

A few years back I had the pleasure of being riding in the last DC-3 in passenger service while on safari in South Africa. A beautiful aircraft meticulously maintained. That was one heck of a trip.

Awesome. The DC3 is truly an iconic aircraft. Superb to fly in too. I have had four flights in them and look forward to doing it again should the opportunity arise.

Most people aren't familiar with Sustain Engineering. Every part in the DC3 is detailed in a BOM or build of materials. Every time a part goes "end of life" it has to be replaced and the BOM has to be updated. No easy feat in a build consisting of 10s of thousands of parts. One of my instructors at Oracle University made a career doing Sustain Engineering for the DC3. Imagine how many changes were made to the DC3 over the decades.....

FC-47??? (11:18). Must be the little known interceptor variant. I wonder what its turn and climb rate was?

I listened to this in a building that a good number of gliders towed by the CH-47 were built in. Also I was machining parts for Boeing 737 at the same time. There is a CH-47 that flies out of Detroit that occasionally flys over my house. I love to hear those radials.

last night when I strolling in my flightradar24 app, I found 2 DC-3 still in use.. CGKKB and N500MF, both are manufactured in January 1944 according to the apps.. but I think from the photos, both are not using their original radial engines anymore..

A wise pilot once said, "If it looks good, it flies good". Truer words were never spoken.

They are pretty exciting to skydive out of as well, you go out behind that huge prop and in front of the tail plane, the prop gives you quite a kick. Plus you fly in a DC-3 what more could you ask for.

87 years old. 13 years to become a truly Century Plane.

you said at 4:35 that it uses turboprop engines, but those are actually radial engines. Later conversions have been done, but those are likely on a different type certificate

we get a refurbished DC3 flying in to our community every now and then. it has newer turbine engines installed. pilot says about 30% in fuel savings. the nicest DC3 I seen.

A worthy tribute to a worthy aircraft. Disappointing that the Berlin Airlift was omitted.

I'm a bit of an aviation history buff and love WW II prop planes, the DC-3 is one of my all time favorites. Even knowing what a great aircraft it was it does seem a bit crazy that these things are still in service around the world.

In 2017, I had the chance to fly as a passenger in planes at a little...well, "air show" would be a but generous, but it effectively was one from the Commemorative Air Force. They brought in four historic planes to show off on the ground, and for not an insignificant amount, you can be taken up in the air in them for about 30 minutes at a time. The first plane they did flights in was a C-47. I was almost shocked at just how smooth every bit of the flight was, and it became shock upon reflection after going up in the other planes: a B-25, a B-17, and finally the only still-flying SB2C. The C-47 was a truly remarkable plane to fly in. That said, it might not have helped that just weeks prior to the flights, my great uncle, shortly before he passed away, gave me his M1 Garand that was issued to him during WW2. During my flight in the C-47, I kept finding myself almost instinctively checking to see if the Garand was still slung across my body (I obviously did not take it with me to the show), if I was secured to a parachute, and if there was a going to be a red light near the door turning on before someone opened the door mid-air. Yeah, I know the whole thing was silly, but I have always been a big military history buff, so I couldn't help but imagine what it was like being a crewmember of the B-25s in the Doolittle Raid, or the nearly countless B-17s shadows passing over the ground on their way to France or Germany (I recorded a stretch of the B-17's shadow after takeoff), or the rear gunners in SB2Cs (because that was how you went up as a passenger at that show) having to watch out for Japanese fighters trying to shoot them down. If you ever get the chance to fly in a DC-3 or any of its variants, I highly recommend it.

Market-Garden wasn't executed immediately after D-Day, it happened 3 months after the invasion. Otherwise to execute it that early, would've seen the complete destruction of the 101st, the 82nd and the 1st Airborne division as they would be completely cut off from the main Allied ground armies by a good distance.

The DC-3/C-47 is one of the best looking planes ever made, that ever took to the sky. Even parked and stationary, the plane looks like it is ready to take the wind and fly. I absolutely love this plane!

Have had two flights on commercial DC3 s.They no longer carry passengers,but there are still some carrying freight. Thank you for the video

I worked on one once, what a joy to be apart of History.

Operation Marjet Garden. My father was one of those paratroopers. He was wounded and sent to a POW camp in Germany.🙂🇨🇦

I'm pretty sure the DC-3 pre-dares the invention of the turboprop engine!

Its wing was designed without a main spar, single point of failure. It has over thirty bolted joints that run the length of the winf so it can take a tremendous amount of damage. They were also used as gliders themselves. Loaded with fuel, ammunition and other aircraft spares they landed in temporary airfields in Normandy where they could be set up as fighter workshops and so service the aircragt locally and get them back in the air quicker.

I took an aerospace science class at my high school, which was an aerospace engineering based charter school at my city airport. Took a field trip to fly in one of the few functional DC-3s in the US, and it was unbelievably cool. The Sun n’ Fun fly in in Lakeland Florida usually has one running short flights around the airport during the fly in that you can go on.

The Gunship verfsion of the c-47 AC-47.

My Grandpa's cousin owned a construction company but he loved planes and he paid for the restoration of "Whiskey 7" by the National Warplane Museum in Geneseo,NY. I've never flown in it but I have been inside it at the airshow.

One of the most iconic aircraft, ever.

2:45 - Chapter 1 - Pioneering travel 4:30 - Chapter 2 - Built to fly 6:00 - Chapter 3 - The beginning of an era 7:15 - Chapter 4 - The goovey bird 8:30 - Chapter 5 - Operation Market Garden 10:05 - Chapter 6 - Battle of the bulge 11:15 - Chapter 7 - The spooky dragon 13:20 - Chapter 8 - Building an era 14:35 - Chapter 9 - They don't build them like they used to be 16:00 - Chapter 10 - The world after teh DC3

Flew in a DC-3 from Lima, Peru to the airport near Marcona Iron Mine in the late 1960s. It was interesting to notice that everything but the kitchen sink was being flown on that plane.

My grandfather flown the C-47 during WWII and Korea. He loved that plane and said it was the best airframe he ever flew.

The DC-3 did not have turboprop engines. They had radial engines. A very important detail that i'm surprised was missed, seeing as the specific radial engines that were fitted to the DC-3 and its military variant (C-47) were correctly mentioned.

I flew on a Nicaraguan Air Force, Douglas C-47 from Managua to Blue Fields, Nicaragua back in 1976. Great story on the iconic DC-3/C-47 Dakota. Thanks for sharing!

The DC3 I flew during the usa-Vietnam War was older than I was. I was made in 1946 and it was made in 1942. The engines had been rebuilt hundreds of times before I got it.

In 1961 pilot Ernest Gann's book "Fate is the Hunter" was published. Parts of the non-fiction book detailed his experiences flying DC-3s and C-47s. He passed away in 1991 (October 13 1910 - December 19 1991). One of those cases where the aircraft survived the author. "we had been held to the law of 25,346 pounds. Now we should lift a presumed 31,000, an increase which left us dubious because it canceled our ability to fly on one engine until long after take-off. Moreover, the loads were not accurately weighed but merely estimated. This led to some interesting surprises." C-47, WWII, "Fate is the Hunter," Ernest Gann.

The Lockheed Constellation would be a fun video.

11:17 "The FC-47" *shows name as AC-47*

There is a company that specialises in rebuilding DC3's by extending the fuselage forward of the wings, updating the avionics and installing Turbo Prop engines. This has been done as the supply of avgas for the piston engines is getting scarce and many operators want to keep operating them.

I got to take a ride in a DC-3 years ago and it was damn cool. And if I ever get a chance to do it again I'll jump on it!

Some designs are just timeless and immortal

I've always loved the DC3, ever since I saw one at Jersey (the real, Channel Islands Jersey, not the subsequent city in America) Airport. I loved it because it appealed aesthetically to my then young mind, which quality still leads in my appreciation of it all these decades later. Nice use of Handel, by the way.

Even today, major airline companies only make profit margins around 3-5%. Now, 3-5% of billions is still a decent chunk of change, but when in consideration to wanting to expand to keep your company fresh in the publics mind, it does eat into it pretty good. I’m comparison, Amazon clears almost 30%, last I checked (numbers may have changed by now). I find it interesting that airliners are not rolling in the cash like most people think.

The Wright and the Pratt & Whitney weren't turboprop engines. The turboprop engine, a type of jet engine using a propeller, hadn't been invented yet!

Spooky is one of my favorite modifications to not just the DC3 but probably of all time. There is just something about 3 or more mini guns firing more ammo in a minute than a soldier does in his life… yeah we Americans perfected that.

My grandmother worked on a C-47 assembly line for a few years. I have two squares of aircraft skin That she riveted together for the job.

My first ever plane flight was on a DC-3, such an iconic aircraft. I would love to own one.

As a child of missionaries growing up in Brazil in the 50s and 60s I flew approximately 40 thousand km in war surplus DC-3s. I learned how to keep them on course and would love to fly in one again.

I flew into a WWii based airshow in a DC3, They had to pause the show for us to land, it was fantastic! If you like the DC3 and haven't seen Ice Pilots, You have been missing out. Best reality show. Ever.

You’ve gotta dance like there’s nobody watching, Love like you’ll never be hurt, Sing like there’s nobody listening, And live like it’s heaven on earth

At 1:30 the picture is of a Basler converted DC 3 with Pt 6 Turboprop engines, note the five bladed prop, the nose was cut off and the fuselage was extended which is why it looks so long. (Note the modified wingtips as well and if I recall correctly, the control surfaces were covered with aluminum) I was lucky enough to go through the Basler Production hangar and into one of these ships. The inside seems to go on forever when you're used to a regular 3 as I was. One fellow told us that in addition to being able to back up, the airplane could climb (when empty) almost vertically on one engine! Remarkable.

And to think that the DC-3 has been around for 2/3 of all of Aviation history….

The DC-3 used radial engines, thus the "R" in R-1820. A turboprop is essentially a jet engine with a propeller. Some DC-3s have eventually received truboprops as through Basler conversations out of Wisconsin as thr BT-67. Basler is resurrecting older, and usually non-flying airframes and giving them new life. Their expertise was crucial in getting "That's All Brother", the C-47 that led the D-Day invasion, flying again.

We had a DC-3 at our local airport, when I was a kid. I used to think it looked cool, but only realized it's true awesomeness, when I took an interest in its history.

In 2020, the Shuttleworth collection saw a dozen of these aircraft fly in for a show. Everything from a D-Day paratroop carrier to an Asian airliner with lace trim on the seats!

I used to skydive out of 'Mister Douglas', a DC-3 that would come North in the summer. I can say that I have taken off and flown in a DC-3 multiple times, but I have never landed in one! There really is nothing like the sound of those engines starting, and yes, the ground crew still walked the props around a few turns before the starting sequence.

4:36 The DC-3 didn't have turboprop engines as they weren't invented yet. First flight of a DC-3 prototype conversion, (N300TX), was on July 29, 1982. Great watch, gotta love the DC-3.....

My grandfather flew a c-47 for RAAF in SEA, during WW2. My daughters love looking at the DC3 in our local Air Force association museum

C-47 Dakotas saw massive service with Australian troops in the Pacific. See the battles of Lae and Salamua. They were also among the first and most common planes in the early Berlin Airlift.

Great story of the importance of C-47 in Greg Crouch's book China's Wings. Tons of facts and anecdotes. Well worth the read if you like this bird.

After WW2, Eisenhower was asked to name the five most important pieces of materiel. He chose The Jeep, The Bulldozer, The 2,5 ton truck (CCKW), the DUKW (amphibious version of the CCKW) and the C47 (DC3).

The DC3/C47 is the MOST important airplane ever built! ALL commercial aircraft use many design features I to this day. (Is wing design, power to weight. Nose areodynamics.) Without the DAK aviation would be what it is now. It wasn't pressurization that makes it so reliable. It was,built with over structural support or triple redundancy. I only know of media calling it goonie bird. I always heard it called a DAK or Dakota. Anyone wanna learn woot about a 3 or Dak. Go find plane savers on RU-vid. Mikey McBrian rescues one and he is the only privately solo person owned and flight worthy DC 3 owner in the world.

The take-off scene in A Bridge Too Far is amazing for being 100% real. The number of Dakotas brought together for the air-drop scenes was a huge deal in 1977, it's impossible today (but it'd be CGI anyway in a modern film).

In the mid-1970's I got to ride in a DC-3 from Florida, over Cuba, to the Cayman Islands. I feel privileged to have flown in such an iconic aircraft.

Just so you know, it wasn’t a turboprop as you said at 4:33. A turboprop is a jet turbine with a shaft that drives a propeller. Because this has cylinders not turbines, it’s simply a piston powered propeller aircraft. The engines were in the radial configuration. Recently there have been some turboprop conversions, but those aren’t factory planes.

i remember hitching a lift from tassie back to essendon airport in a cargo flight as the beech 18 i worked with was goona be a few days. early 80s. loved it.

totally agree....it revolutionized personal transportation...like one video says movie stars could be in NY one day and in LA the next...and this was true around the world for various cultures

They were used for spraying DDT and agent orange as well.

Having logged about 7000 hrs. on the C47 (military version of the DC3) I must point out that it took 5 new innovations to make the aircraft economically viable as an airliner - all 5 innovations were required to accomplish this feat : 1) retractable undercarriage, 2) flaps, 3) constant speed propellers, 4) air cooled radial engines, and 5) monocoque construction. That venerable aircraft was truly amazing for technology of those days !

I dont know if I heard it from this channel or a different one but there are supposedly a small handful of DC-3s or C-47s (if not both...) that participated in Operation Market Garden that are still flying to this very day. In this other video the guy who made it did his best to track down as many of the last operational ones that he could and the fate of a few others after the war. It was a very interesting watch. They are of course owned and operated by very very small airlines used to transport passengers or civilian aid and other goods to very remote parts of the country where it would otherwise be impossible to get to by land or a massive headache due to the terrain. He managed to track down one that was under the possession of a small Argentinian airline but couldnt fine any information online if it was still in service or not. I will definitely have to find the video.

Nearly every weekend i get to see a DC-3 ,a Caribou and a super Constellation doing laps around my house.

Saw the ole Flabob Express... Sure do miss that aircraft, crew and Airfield. Thank you for speaking about this airframe and such an iconic aircraft. Clearest of skies from a fellow Flabobian.

I had a few privalages to see the DC-3 live. At the time, I was attempting to get my pilots licence, so I was "allowed" onto the air-side of an airport (FAGM). Before one of my flights, I managed to watch the majestic aircraft do a take-off. Back at home, It was my favourite aircraft in Flight Simulator X.

There was a saying, that when the last 737 was parked in the boneyard, the pilots would fly out on a DC-9 When the last DC-9 was parked in the boneyard, the pilots would fly out in a DC-3... Indicating the lifespan of these old solid and tough birds.

Amazing airplane and the proud user of the world's largest amphibious floats. LaRonge Air in Northern Saskatchewan operated them until very recently. Simon, you need to get your guys to check terms a bit more carefully though. Turboprop???? Pistons are not turboprops. The DC3 has been fitted with turboprops but not until 50 years and more since any were built.

It was also built under license by the Soviet Union as the Lisunov Li-2. There were differences though that were necessitated due to the use of the metric system in the USSR while the original was dimensioned in US customary units. It also used Soviet engines instead of a copy of the original design.

During my Army tour of duty in Vietnam, on two occasions I flew in a C-47 from Bien Hoa to Vung Tau and on the return trip in an in-country R&R.

As a kid, I was fortunate to get a few rides DC3's. One of those included a trip from Melbourne, Australia, down to Tasmania and back again. The seats were as hard as hobnails. The roar of the big P&W twin wasps was unbearable. It was the middle of winter and I swear that it was about minus fifteen degrees Celsius once we got to cruising altitude. The only thing that tempered the smell of avgas and oil was the smell of burning tobacco. I reckon that the captain and the first officer smoked about half an ounce of tobacco each on both legs of the flight. They must have been in their seventies, I'm not kidding. I was waiting for one of them to have a heart attack at any moment. So much for "smoking kills". Those seventy plus years must have counted for something, though. Charts and a compass were the only way they had to navigate, and they didn't fail to find their destinations. On both legs of the flight, the landings were seamless. They wheeled it onto the tarmac like they were buttering bread on a hot summer's day. I'll never forget that trip. How spoiled I am to have experienced it.

Early airline executives referred to passengers as; self loading cargo.