Douglas DC-3 - Operational History

Operational History

American Airlines inaugurated passenger service on June 26, 1936, with simultaneous flights from Newark, N.J. and Chicago, IL. Early U.S. airlines like American, United, TWA and Eastern ordered over 400 DC-3s. These fleets paved the way for the modern American air travel industry, quickly replacing trains as the favored means of long-distance travel across the United States.

In 1936, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines received its first DC-3, which replaced the DC-2 on the service from Amsterdam via Batavia (now Jakarta) to Sydney, by far the longest scheduled route in the world at the time.

The first airline in Latin America to use DC-3s was Cubana de Aviación, initially placing them in service in its domestic routes, and then using them to start its first international scheduled service, from Havana to Miami, in 1945. This was the first scheduled service to Miami by a Latin American airline. Cubana used DC-3s in some of its domestic routes well into the 1960s.

Piedmont Airlines operated DC-3/C-47s from 1948 to 1963. A DC-3 painted in the representative markings of Piedmont, operated by the Carolinas Aviation Museum, was retired from flight in March 2011. Both Delta Air Lines and Continental Airlines operate "commemorative" DC-3s wearing period markings.

During World War II, many civilian DC-3s were drafted for the war effort and just over 10,000 US military versions of the DC-3 were built, under the designations C-47, C-53, R4D, and Dakota. Peak production was reached in 1944, with 4,853 being delivered. The armed forces of many countries used the DC-3 and its military variants for the transport of troops, cargo, and wounded.

Licensed copies of the DC-3 were built in Japan as Showa L2D (487 aircraft) and in the USSR as the Lisunov Li-2 (4,937 aircraft)

Thousands of surplus C-47s, previously operated by several air forces, were converted for civilian use after the war and became the standard equipment of almost all the world's airlines, remaining in front line service for many years. The ready availability of cheap, easily maintained ex-military C-47s, both large and fast by the standards of the day, jump-started the worldwide post-war air transport industry. While aviation in pre-war Continental Europe had used the metric system, the overwhelming dominance of C-47s and other US war-surplus types cemented the use of nautical miles, knots and feet in post-war aviation throughout the world.

Douglas had developed an improved version, the Super DC-3, with more engine power, greater cargo capacity, and a different wing but, with all the bargain-priced surplus aircraft available, this did not sell well in the civil aviation market. Only five were delivered, three of them to Capital Airlines. The U.S. Navy had 100 of their early R4Ds converted to Super DC-3 standard during the early 1950s as the R4D-8, later C-117D. The last U.S. Navy C-117 was retired July 12, 1976. The last U.S. Marine Corps C-117, serial 50835, was retired from active service during June 1982. Several remained in service with small airlines in North and South America in 2006.

A number of aircraft companies attempted to design a "DC-3 replacement" over the next three decades (including the very successful Fokker F27 Friendship), but no single type could match the versatility, rugged reliability, and economy of the DC-3. It remained a significant part of air transport systems well into the 1970s.