Reader Report: Local plane fans join celebration of 80 years of the DC-3
The legendary Douglas DC-3, considered by many aviation experts to be one of the greatest, most significant airplanes ever built, has been nicknamed the “Gooney Bird,” “Duzzy,” “Methuselah With Wings” and “Grand old Lady.”
Recognizable by its distinctive nose-up profile resembling an eagle’s beak and sleek, shining metal fuselage, the twin-engine aircraft has had a long history in Orange County that began at the outbreak of World War II, when military DC-3s were stationed at the now-closed El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, and in 1951, when Bonanza Airlines inaugurated DC-3 passenger service to San Francisco, San Diego, Phoenix and Las Vegas from Orange County Airport, which was renamed John Wayne Airport in 1979.
Even today, DC-3s, which cruise at 130 mph and have a maximum speed of 220 mph, may be found on the tarmac at John Wayne and other regional airports.
Two DC-3s are permanently displayed at the Lyon Air Museum on the west side of John Wayne. One is an ex-American Airlines aircraft named Flagship Orange County. It started life as an Army Air Corps transport. The other, also a former Army transport named Willa Dean, in honor of the wife of the museum founder, now retired Air Force Maj. Gen. William Lyon, later served in the French and Israeli air forces.
This month, aviation enthusiasts here and around the world will celebrate the DC-3’s 80th anniversary, which commemorates the aircraft’s first passenger flight, on June 26, 1936, when an American Airlines DC-3 carrying 21 passengers flew non-stop from Chicago to Newark, N.J. The first person to purchase a ticket for that historic journey was child actress Shirley Temple.
By the late 1940s, when construction of the DC-3 ended in favor of the newer and more advanced DC-4, 455 civilian DC-3s and 10,174 military versions of the aircraft had been built.
The DC-3, which can accommodate up to 28 sitting passengers or 14 in folded-down seats that make up into beds, revolutionized the travel industry by slicing the 25-hour coast-to-coast flight time of its predecessor, the smaller and slower DC-2, to 18 hours. By the late 1930s, an estimated 90% of America’s airline passengers were flying in the DC-3.
The equally renowned military DC-3s, which were designated the C-47 Skytrain by the U.S. Army Air Corps, the R4D by the U.S. Navy and the “Dakota” or “Dak” by Great Britain, Canada and other English-speaking World War II allies, performed multiple functions, such as carrying paratroopers, weapons, including large artillery pieces, jeeps, trucks and virtually any sort of cargo. Afterthe war, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower stated that the military DC-3, along with the atomic bomb, bazooka and jeep, was “one of the four tools of victory that won the war for the U.S. and its allies.”
Echoing Eisenhower’s praise of the DC-3 is Byron M. Tarnutzer, a 50-year Newport Beach resident, aviation historian, former Army officer and pilot who has owned and flown three aircraft: a five-passenger Bell Jet Ranger helicopter he flew on search and rescue and other missions as a reserve deputy in the Orange County Sheriff’s Department’s Aero Squadron, a WWII Navy Trojan flight trainer and an eight-passenger Citation private jet.
“Both the civilian and military DC-3s have proved to be among the world’s most rugged, safe, reliable, versatile and easy to maintain aircraft, said Tarnutzer, a real estate developer who has flown as a DC-3 passenger in East Africa and Mexico.
“The DC-3 can land on dirt, sand, gravel and grass,” Tarnutzer said. “It can be fitted with pontoons and skis for takeoffs and landings on water, ice and snow. During World War II, it played an important role in transporting paratroopers and pulling gliders during the Normandy landings. It carried food, fuel and other supplies into isolated West Berlin during the Berlin Airlift, and during WWII and the Korean and Vietnam wars, it also transported injured soldiers, Marines and sailors on stretchers to hospitals.”
Also in Vietnam, DC-3s were fitted with machine gun turrets to serve as improvised gunships.
Following the retirement of the passenger DC-3 in the late 1960s and the military version in the mid 1970s, many of the aircraft were sold to charter operators, museums, private collectors, flying clubs, government agencies for roles such as firefighting and mapping, sightseeing companies and entrepreneurs who removed their wings and turned them into diners and coffee shops, homes, apartments, motels, garages, curio shops and even motor homes and delivery vehicles.
But about 250 DC-3s, despite the fact that the last one was built in the late 1940s, are still flying today, carrying, for example, missionaries to Haiti and the Dominican Republic and passengers and freight to isolated villages in South America and Canada’s frozen Northwest Territory.
“The DC-3 is so sturdy and dependable that our 71-year-old plane will keep on flying for many years to come,” said Rob Bolling, chief pilot of Catalina Flying Boats Air Service, which is based on the south side of Long Beach Airport.
The airline’s DC-3, which is powered by two Pratt and Whitney gasoline engines and is nicknamed Big Bird, transports “anything and everything” on several daily flights to Catalina Island’s 1,600-foot-high mountaintop Airport in the Sky, including food, liquor, newspapers, mail, heavy packages, truck and car parts, tires, kayaks, bicycles, surfboards and “you name it,” said Bolling, 42, who received his aviation airframe and power plant mechanic certification at Orange Coast College.
“The food we fly to Catalina includes fresh fish, ice cream and almost anything people eat and drink,” he said. “When we land on the island, we load the cargo onto our refrigerated vans and trucks and take it down to Avalon, where it is dropped off at houses, apartments, condos, hotels, restaurants, bars and markets.
“We also carry about 40,000 pounds of food and cargo each week to Catalina boys’ and girls’ camps, which is picked up at our terminal in Avalon and then taken by boats to the camps scattered around the coast.”
Bolling noted the DC-3 can haul 7,500 pounds of freight, and the airline’s other aircraft, a single-engine Cessna Caravan, can carry 3,400 pounds.
Bolling, a pilot for 21 years, also occasionally flies the DC-3 into John Wayne Airport, delivering freight, and over Orange County beaches, dragging gigantic advertising banners for such companies as Tilly’s, Van’s, Toyota of Orange and Wahoo’s Fish Tacos.
“The DC-3 is just about the greatest airplane in the world,” he said. “Our plane has logged more than 23,000 flying hours, we are able to get spare parts for it and we take good care of it. I don’t think it will ever stop flying.”
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DAVID C. HENLEY is a resident of Newport Beach, a long-time newspaperman and foreign correspondent and a member of Chapman University’s Board of Trustees.