Some 85 years after it first flew, the Douglas DC-3 still flies on in commercial service – a testament to the ruggedness of the original design. ALAN DRON tracks down the DC-3s still in service.
It is the aircraft that revolutionised air travel in the 1930s, provided the backbone of the Allies’ transport efforts throughout the Second World War and was the route by which many nascent airlines got into the air post-1945. But how many DC-3s are still flying today?
More than 16,000 DC-3s and C-47s of all variants were built, while the Soviet Union constructed almost 5,000 more under licence as the Lisunov Li-2 and Nakajima Hikoki built close to 500 licensed examples from 1940-45.
Found around the world
DC-3 in New Zealand. (Bernard Spragg)
The aircraft plied the airways in every corner of the globe. Keeping track of the survivors 85 years on since the DC-3’s first flight is a task undertaken by Dutch DC-3 enthusiast Coert Munk, assisted by Michael Prophet and Andre van Loon, who pull together data from around the world.
Early this year, they calculated that 172 DC-3s of all variants were still flying commercially, around one-third of them turboprop conversions. This figure constantly shifts slightly, said Prophet, as aircraft are eventually retired, crash or – occasionally – are restored to flying condition.
As might be imagined, the largest national group is located in the US, where around 80 reside. Canada follows with just over 20, with Colombia having 16.
Still flying after all these years
Buffalo Airways still uses an original DC-3 in the cargo role. (Buffalo Airways)
Only one or two are still in regular passenger service, said Monk, with rather more hauling freight. The great majority are in other lines of work, such as research and entertainment, the latter in the form of pleasure flights.
One significant operator over the years has been Canada’s Buffalo Airways, having had as many as 14 in service at one point. The company now operates only a single example, although it has, until recently, also had two Basler BT-67 turboprop conversions on lease. The turboprops have some significant advantages over the original DC-3, namely being around 30% faster and able to carry about 30% more cargo but the greatest advantage is their ability to use jet fuel, rather than increasingly hard-to-find AvGas, said Buffalo’s General Manager, Mikey McBryan.
The airline’s remaining DC-3 is used solely for hauling cargo – “anything that can fit in the freight door”– and mainly operates two daily 45-minute sectors between Hay River and Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories, the main hubs in this vast region.
The aircraft’s routes cover particularly rugged territory: “There’s no roads, so everything has to be flown in,” said McBryan. Although the DC-3 can be fitted with skis if necessary, their use is very rare today, as most small communities arrange to have an airstrip cleared for Buffalo’s aircraft.
Moving south from the frigid reaches of northern Canada, Central and South America has traditionally been a bastion of surviving examples of the DC-3, with airfields such as Colombia’s Villavicencio, 30 miles southeast of the capital, Bogota, a particular hotspot. Of the 20 aircraft still known to be flying in the South American country, six are operated by the Colombian air force and four by the Colombian national police, with just 10 in commercial hands.
The air force examples, used as gunships in the 50-year guerrilla war against FARC rebels have, with the signing of a peace agreement, been redeployed on duties such as anti-narcotics patrols and surveillance.
Colombian airlines using the DC-3 have been under increasing pressure, said Prophet. New rules and regulations, triggered by a spate of accidents in the 1980s (not all of them involving DC-3s), have made operating conditions increasingly difficult for airlines. Several carriers now fly only one aircraft, with perhaps another one or two in maintenance, he said.
Despite this, the DC-3 remains the ideal aircraft to reach remote villages in the country’s interior: “It’s the most sensible, economical and mechanically solid vehicle to land on a dirt strip.”
An aeroplane under no pressure
The DC-3 first flew in 1935, yet still continues flying today. (RAeS/NAL)
The secret to the aircraft’s durability? “The people at Douglas over-engineered it for safety,” said Prophet. A major factor behind that durability is that the aircraft is unpressurised, sparing its fuselage the strain of pressurisation cycles and eventual fatigue. Can it keep going indefinitely? “As long as you keep parts well-oiled, replace cylinders and have all the tubing regularly maintained, why not?”
Those sentiments are echoed by Mike Woodley, CEO of Dunsfold, UK-based aviation filming specialists Aces High, whose G-DAKS has appeared in more than 30 films.
“It’s a very simple aeroplane – a clockwork aeroplane, basically. It has no hydraulic controls on it.” That considerably eases the maintenance tasks. “It’s as good as the day it was built. It’s corrosion-free and lives in a hangar in winter.”
The aircraft may be simple to keep operational but doing so does not come cheap: “It costs £100,000 a year just to maintain it,” said Woodley. However, “Spares are still relatively easy to come by. They made more DC-3s than all other airliners in the world put together. We’ve got containers full of spares and you can buy spare engines for it.”
When Woodley’s company acquired the aircraft, it was destined for the fire dump at the Ministry of Defence base at Catterick. “A bit silly, because it had the lowest [flying] time in the world. It has only done 3,800 hours from new and has only had two owners – the RAF and us.”
The aircraft saw action at both D-day and at Arnhem and, unusually, has never been civilianised. It spent much of its career with the RAF at West Freugh, southwest Scotland, dropping experimental sonar buoys and was then seconded to electronics firm Ferranti to be fitted with the Airpass radar used on the English Electric Lightning.
As mentioned above, the number of DC-3s fluctuates. There are, of course, the almost inevitable occasional crashes. But there are also examples of ‘new’ aircraft coming to light.
The Soviet C-47
The DC-3, now upgraded with turboprops has a new lease of life as the Basler BT-67. (Timothy Smith)
One was a C-47 supplied under Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union in 1943, which was transferred to civilian use and which made a forced landing on the Taymyr Peninsula of northern Siberia in April 1947. After 20 days, 20 of the 29 occupants were found alive in the wreckage – ironically, by the crew of an overflying Li-2, which was able to land nearby to pick them up.
The wreckage remained on the tundra until 2016 when an expedition mounted by the Russian Geographical Society retrieved the remarkably well-preserved wreck and transported it by helicopter and barge to Krasnoyarsk, where it is being refurbished and is destined to be an exhibit in the city’s planned Museum of the Exploration of the Russian North.
There are still examples of the DC-3 waiting to be brought back into the public gaze. Even in this era of ubiquitous social media, there are some owners who keep their prized aviation possessions locked away in hangars and they are rarely seen. The Dutch group of enthusiasts knows of most of them, but sometimes, admitted Prophet, even he is surprised when an unexpected example turns up.
Locating ‘new’ DC-3s is a regular occurrence at Basler Turbo Conversions. The company has been converting radial-engined DC-3s and C-47s into BT-67 turboprops since the late 1980s. The 67th example is due to roll out of the company’s hangar in mid-July and the company has almost 30 more airframes on hand at its Oshkosh, Wisconsin factory.
“We know of another 150-200 that are candidates and with a bit of research we could probably find another 100,” said Rob Kincaid, Vice-President, Marketing and Product Development.
The company is set up to produce up to five aircraft annually, “but we’re very comfortable with two a year”, said Kincaid.
The term ‘conversion’ is something of a misnomer. Apart from the obvious change of engines from Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp or Wright Cyclone radials to Pratt & Whitney PT6A-67Rs, the fuselage is lengthened by some 40 inches to offset changes in the centre of gravity caused by installation of the much lighter new engines (around 500lb each compared to the 1,500lb radials).
More significantly, around 90% of the original aircraft is discarded, with only the basic fuselage structure being retained. “It’s a zero accumulated fatigue aircraft, which is a lot of legal jargon to say it’s brand new,” said Kincaid. “It’s a complete nose-to-tail conversion, rivet by rivet. The FAA considers the BT-67 to be a separate type rating. If you have a DC-3 type rating, you’d have to come through a course and do a check ride.”
The versatile workhorse
The Colombian Air Force operates the BT-67 in the gunship role. (Colombian Air Force)
The aircraft has proved popular with armed forces – the first major customer was the Royal Thai Air Force, which still uses them for cloud seeding. The company is currently developing that military niche.
It argues that the aircraft’s low price (a base conversion comes in at around $10.3m, although much depends on added customer options) makes it particularly suitable for developing nations with tight budgets for use as a gunship or armed overwatch platform. A new variant being developed for nations with limited airports and infrastructure is a medevac aircraft, with litters and even an operating table.
The BT-67’s other main niche is with civilian companies that use the type for various aspects of scientific research and testing.
The aircraft’s endurance – just over 2,000nm or more than 13 hours with long-range tanks – makes it particularly favoured by geophysical research companies, for example, while China uses two ski-equipped BT-67s operated by Canada’s Kenn Borek Air for Antarctic support duties.
“The biggest issue we have with the industry is perception,” said Kincaid. “Because it looks like a C-47, the tendency is for people to go ‘Oh, that’s an 80-year-old aircraft.’ But it’s really not.”
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The Dutch Dakota Association
The DC-3/Dakota has a strong connection with The Netherlands, thanks to Arnhem. (DDA Classic Airlines)
Among the non-commercial organisations keeping DC-3s in the air is DDA [Dutch Dakota Association] Classic Airlines of The Netherlands, whose aircraft performs around 30 weekends of pleasure flights a year, mainly in the Netherlands and Germany.
The Lelystad-based aircraft has an unusually rich history, even for a DC-3. It took part not only in the D-Day invasion but in the ill-fated Operation Market Garden, which was intended to create a 100km salient held by US, British and Polish paratroopers along a narrow corridor in The Netherlands in autumn 1944, seizing bridges at Eindhoven, Nijmegen and Arnhem and forcing a bridgehead over the Rhine, thus shortening the war. This history means the aircraft “has added historical value for us in Holland,” said DDA Classic Airlines foundation chairman, Feije Jaski.
A further Dutch connection comes from Prince Bernhard of The Netherlands, who bought the aircraft in the US in 1946 and sold it a year later to the Dutch government, for which it performed VIP flights for many years – often flown by the Prince himself. The aircraft’s registration, PH-PBA, recalls Prince Bernhard’s links.
The DC-3 also arouses considerable enthusiasm in Germany, Jaski added, where the type is known fondly as the Rosinen-Bomber, or ‘grape-bomber’, a reference to its significant role in ferrying fresh food to Berlin during that city’s blockade by the East Germans in 1948-49. Beyond that, many Germans admire the aircraft’s old but durable technology.
“We fly the aircraft 120 to 150 hours annually during the April to November season,” Jaski said. Typically, flights are operated from Amsterdam Schiphol, Rotterdam, Maastricht and Groningen to overfly landmarks such as the tulip fields and central Amsterdam. Remarkably, the foundation has broken even since 2011. The Covid-19 pandemic has forced DDA to cancel this summer’s timetable but Jaski is confident the aircraft will be back in the air next year.
Despite its age, “The aircraft is in excellent shape. We’ve changed engines on it many times and they only have a few hundred hours’ flying time. We inspected the wings recently and it looks like it came from the factory last week. “There’s no lack of engines. In the US there are engines that are fully refurbished and when we buy them, they have zero hours.”
DDA Classic Airlines has around 80 volunteers that maintain and fly PH-PBA. The ground crews have either retired from, or still work in, the aviation industry. “They’re usually highly skilled. During the winter we have refresher courses to keep them licensed. The most important part, of course, is in the cockpit and we have eight or nine pilots.”
Uniquely, said Jaski, a sponsor has built a fully-functioning DC-3 simulator, complete with 180-degree screens and audio-visual systems. Although mounted on a fixed base, the pilots’ seats have up to 10 degrees of movement for realism and, as with a modern airliner simulator, an instructor can pose problems for the pilots, such as engine failure, by the push of a button.