The Douglas DC3 ( also known as the C47 in freight form ) and popularly known in
England as the 'Dakota' was a pre war design that is still in commercial use today.
It was very advanced aerodynamically, yet simple, rugged and above all reliable
and very strong for use on bad landing strips. Even after the War it was state of
the art, made possible by the introduction of high output, reliable engines. The
aircraft was so adaptable that several have been re-engined with turbo-prop units
and fly commercially today and it causes some concern to commercial aircrew to be
passed and outclimbed by an aircraft that ferried paratroopers across the Channel
on D-Day! Conventional piston engined 'twin wasp' DC3's are still hard at work
on relief and transport duties in many countries as well as oil pollution dispersal
work in the UK.
'Morning' - a painting for the memorial project by Becky Turner.
The design combined semi-retractable main wheels ( the bottom part of the tyres did
not retract into the wings but didn't seriously affect the drag as they were smooth).
This improved fuel consumption and speed, and the modern all metal construction,
at a time when some modern aircraft were still wooden, gave a spacious fuselage,
wide floor and good payload. With an all metal skin, modern instruments and flight
controls, it was one of the first passenger aircraft to have a safe performance with
one engine shut down , partly due to the power to weight ratio and also because the
designer had the engines tucked in as close as possible to the centre line to reduce
problems with single engine flight. The plane could even take off unladen on one
engine. There was a good power to weight ratio which gave excellent take off and
climb out from small airfields and a useful load carrying ability. The DC3 was essentially
the first modern airliner and freighter.
There were many post war accidents involving the type and a look at the records
show that there was an incident every few days somewhere in the World, a minor airfield
shunt, a forced landing, and sometimes a crash. As a hugely popular workhorse which
opened up aviation to the public, this does not mean that the design was in any way
unsafe - in fact many would argue that the DC3 is the most successful aircraft
of all time and even today has few rivals. There were just a lot more of them, available
as war surplus and thus cheap, and they were often worked to the limit in terms of
performance, loading and conditions. The number of accidents must be put down to
generally lower standards in the aviation industry at the time, use by marginal operators
with poor or non existent service facilities, inexperienced crews, bad landing grounds,
operation in atrocious weather conditions, and statistically, the large number of
hours flown by the type. Emphatically, the DC3 was not unsafe.
As airlines slowly became more regulated after the War the losses began to drop,
but the air transport business was still something of a free for all and even major
airlines such as BEA lost planes to collisions and navigational errors. It was
not until a rigid and prescriptive Air Traffic Control scheme was introduced and
airlines were required to follow standard procedures and pre arranged flight plans
that things began to improve.
The iconic outline of the Dakota in shadow photographed from the aircraft as it crosses
the coastline.
