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A14 l DAYTON DAILY NEWS ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2003

THE GREAT PLANES

Dou

glas DC

-3/C-47

The vertical tail and rudder areaon the DC-3 was increased to solvedirectional control problem

sencountered in the DC-2.

Sources: Band of Brothers by Stephen A. Ambrose (Sim

on & Schuster, 1992), C-47 Skytrain In Action by Larry Davis(Squadron/Signal Publications, 1995), A

ircraft and Airports, Donald Clarke, ed. (Marshall Cavendish Books Ltd.), Flight,

100 Years of Aviation by R.G. Grant (Dorling Kindersley Ltd., 2002), http://www.daveswarbirds.com/usplanes/aircraft/skytrain.htm,http://www.grunts.net

A series of special pages focu

sing on

the sign

ificant m

achin

es, events an

d people of powered fligh

t’s first 100 years

DaytonD

ailyNew

s

In the mid-1960s the Air Force built 47 AC-47 (attack/cargo)

“Spooky” gunships with several .30-caliber machine guns

mounted in the rear fuselage to fill the need for a low, slow,

night-flying support aircraft during the Vietnam War.

The rear passenger door of the DC-3 was replaced withlarge split cargo doors on the C-47. The doors were oftenrem

oved during operations.

Manufacturer: Douglas Company

C-47ANum

ber ordered: More than 10,000Span: 95 ft. 6 in.Length: 63 ft. 9 in.Height: 17 ft.Engine: Two 1,050 hp Pratt & Whitney1830-92 Twin Wasp air-cooled radialenginesSpeed: 230 m

phPassengers: 4 crew, 27 troops

DC-3Engine: Either two 1,000 hp Pratt &Whitney Twin Wasps or two 1,000 hpWright SGR-1820 CyclonesCruising speed: 185 m

phPassengers: 21 passengers, 3

crew. 14 passengers inbunks for long distancenight flights.

Written and designed by T

ed Pitts

Photography by S

kip PetersonFor m

ore information contact tpitts@

coxohio.comView this and other pages in the Great Planes series

at DaytonDailyNews.com

Landing gear, when retracted, left the tires partially exposedso that an em

ergency landing could be made without too

much dam

age even if the gear failed to lower.

The DC-3 wingspan was 10 ft. wider than the DC-2, and thetips were tapered and rounded. The increased size allowedfor additional internal fuel capacity, thereby increasing range.

DC-3 engines, either two1,000 hp Pratt & WhitneyTwin Wasps or two 1,000 hpWright SGR-1820 Cyclones,were replaced with m

orepowerful 1200 hp WarEm

ergency Pratt & WhitneyTwin Wasp engines.

Specs&StatsC

EN

TU

RY O

F F

LIG

HT

1903 ~

2003

"The bazooka, the jeep, the atom bom

b,and the DC-3" was how Gen. DwightEisenhower described the pivotalequipm

ent of the Allied victory in WorldWar II. The C-47 in all its variations was them

ilitary version of the DC-3. It served as aheavy cargo and paratroop carrier, a

seaplane, a glider, a glider tug, andpost-WWII as an electronic

reconnaissance planeand a gunship.

Around 13,000were produced,

and theiradaptabilityand reliabilitywerelegendary.The m

ostnum

erousvariant was the

C-47A with atotal of 5,233

produced. The m

ajor exteriorchanges to the DC-3

were the replacement of the

rear passenger door with a large two-piece cargo door that opened outwardfrom

the middle both to the rear and to

the front. Additionally, a smaller passenger

door was inset into the front half of thelarger door. The doors were often rem

ovedduring operations. A sm

all astrodome observation bubble

was added to the top front of the fuselagejust behind the cockpit, and the wingspanof the C-47 was six inches wider than theDC-3. The Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp radialengines each developed 200 m

orehorsepower than their civiliancounterparts. Inside, the passenger seats werereplaced first with folding canvas seatsattached to the interior of the fuselage,then later with folding m

etal seats. The C-47 continued its m

ilitary servicein Korea and as the AC-47, a radio andradar m

onitoring aircraft in Cold WarEurope, and the EC-47N “Electric Goons”in the Vietnam

War. Additionally, the Air Force built 47 AC-47Ds (attack/cargo) variations of the C-47, each with several .30-caliber m

achineguns m

ounted in the rear fuselage as low,slow, night-flying gunships designed todefend villages and ham

lets in SouthVietnam

. The converted C-47s flew 5,000m

issions and are credited with inflicting50,000 to 75,000 casualties on Viet Congand North Vietnam

ese troops.

A product of the United States NavalAcadem

y (he dropped out after threeyears) and MIT  (earning a four-yeardegree in aeronautical engineering in justtwo years), Donald W

. Douglas became

chief engineer of the Martin AirplaneCom

pany in 1915. After service as aircraftengineer in W

WI and another stint

with Martin, Douglas headedwest in 1920 and form

edDavis-Douglas AircraftCo. with m

illionaireDavid Davis. Thecom

pany quicklydistinguished itselfwith m

ilitary andcom

mercial

aircraft: The Army’s

Douglas World

Cruiser made the

first around-theworld-flight in 1924,and the Douglas M-1Mailplane was the Air MailService standard. By 1928 thecom

pany was worth $28 million and

designing some of the world’s finest

planes: The DC-3 is considered the most

successful aircraft ever built. Douglassold the com

pany to McDonnell in 1967.

The Douglas Comm

ercial Transport DC-1,designed and built by the Douglas AircraftCo. in 1933, was a direct response to theintroduction of the Boeing 247, developedfor and offered exclusively to United Airlines.Transcontinental and W

estern Airlines (TWA)

needed a competitive airplane and

comm

issioned the DC-1. The new design, and that of the subsequentDC-2s and DC-3s, com

bined safety, speedand reliability, and added a new concept –passenger com

fort. Its smooth ride and ease

of maintenance – an engine could be

completely replaced in less than two hours

– threw open the door to the era of modern

comm

ercial passenger flight. Am

erican Airlines wanted a larger versionof the DC-2 in use at TW

A, and comm

issionedDouglas to produce what would becom

e the

DC-3. The Douglas Sleeper Transport had alarger cabin area and was wider, longer andcapable of greater range than itspredecessors. It could carry either 14passengers in sleeper berths, or up to 28 inits day coach version. The DC-3 becam

e the dominant passenger

and cargo transport plane of the era. It wasthe first airplane to m

ake a profit solely onpassenger operations. By 1939, four-fifthsof all Am

erican comm

ercial transport planeswere DC-3s, and three out of every fourAm

erican airline passengers were flying inDC-3s, with 90 percent of all Am

erican airlinepassengers in either a DC-2 or DC-3. The Douglas com

pany, on the wings ofthe DC-2 and DC-3, becam

e the world’s largestcivil aircraft m

anufacturer, a position it helduntil the 1950s.

AIRBORNE IN

FANTRY

Donald D

ouglas

TH

E P

LA

NE

TH

AT

CH

AN

GE

D T

HE

WO

RLD

C-4

7 Skytrain

“They were special in their values. They put a premium

onphysical well-being, hierarchical authority, and being partof an elite unit. They were idealists, eager to m

ergethem

selves into a group fighting for a cause, activelyseeking an outfit with which they could identify, join, bea part of, relate to as fam

ily.”~ B

and of Brothers by Stephen E. Am

brose Am

ong the most precious cargo carried by the WWII-

era C-47s were the D-Day paratroopers dropped behindenem

y lines on June 6, 1944 in the long-awaited attack toliberate western Europe from

German occupation.

The concept of airborne infantry first proposed by Gen. BillyMitchell following WWI was not initially em

braced by the UnitedStates m

ilitary. After both the British and Germans successfully

demonstrated the value of paratrooper infantry at the outset

of war in Europe, however, the U.S. Army in 1940 authorized

the raising of 2 Airborne Infantry Divisions; the 82ndAirborne and the 101st Airborne. At 10:15 p.m

. June 5, 1944, 13,400 volunteerparatroopers boarded m

ore than 1,000 C-47s and weredropped onto the Cherbourg Peninsula on the coast ofoccupied France - the 101st behind the area designatedUtah Beach to help secure the beach for the m

ain ship-borne invasion force and to defend against a Germ

anattack from

the east, the 82nd farther inland to securebridges and blunt any Germ

an counterattack from the

west. Many of the C-47 pilots had no com

bat experience,and the form

ation broke up when they entered a cloudbank as they reached the coast of France. In an attem

ptto avoid Germ

an anti-aircraft fire, the planes carrying the101st increased speed and dropped altitude near the dropzones. Consequently, m

any of the paratroopers jumped

from 500 ft. and lower at speeds approaching 150 m

ph,hitting the ground hard within seconds of their chutesopening. Despite the confusion of the initial jum

p – onlyone sixth of the m

en of the 101st reached their destinationpoints – the troops regrouped on the ground and wereable to help secure the beachhead for the m

ain invasionforce. The 82nd fared slightly better, but half the forcewas left without m

uch of their supplies. Until the final defeat of the Germ

ans in Europe, theairborne infantry was at the forefront of the Allied advance,(the 17th Airborne Division later joined the 82nd and101st) dealing with the worst conditions and taking heavycasualties. From

the failed September 1944 Operation

Market Garden assault on Arnhem, Holland, through the

full fury of the German counteroffensive in the Ardennes

forest at Bastogne, Belgium in Decem

ber, 1944, and oninto a defeated Germ

any in 1945, they distinguishedthem

selves as among the best and bravest soldiers in

American m

ilitary history.

101st paratroopers prepare to board a C-47 transportfor the D-Day invasion on June 5, 1944.

WH

AT

TH

EY

CA

RR

IED

D-D

ay paratroopers weighed in at 90

-120 pounds

over their body weight. Typically a parachutist

jumped from

the plane with:

• M-1 Garand Rifle with 8-round clip, cartridge belt

with canteen, hand grenades, parachute and pack,anti-flash headgear and gloves, pocket com

pass,m

achete, .45 caliber Colt automatic rifle, flares,

message book, a loaded .45 autom

atic pistol, medical

kit, knife, escape/survival kit, toggle rope, additionalpersonal item

s, emergency rations including: 4 pieces

of chewing gum, 2 bouillon cubes, 2 instant coffees,

2 sugar cubes, and creamers, 4 chocolate bars, 1 pack

of candy, 1 package pipe tobacco, 1 bottle of waterpurification (Halazone) tablets to purify water.

20,000 paratroopers of the 101st, 82nd and British 1st Division dropped into Holland in Septem

ber 1944 aspart of the Operation M

arket Garden assault on Arnhem.

The first American Airlines Douglas DST (Douglas Sleeper Transport) in 1936. This

plane is considered the first of the profoundly successful DC-3 series.