Sunday, December 27

Flagship Detroit

John Testrake, a fellow Jaguar XJ owner, noted that the DC-3 I saw recently flying over Fort Worth Alliance Airport is NOT the one in the AA Museum, but another. The one I saw must have been the American Airlines Flagship Detroit. Unfortunately, the link John sent me can't be embedded here, but I found another, with the Detroit visiting Vancouver. It's even better, and one has to appreciate those delightful Western Canadian accents, eh?




The group that restored this wonderful icon is here. Among other things, see who sponsored the restoration. I am glad to see that Boeing has not fogotten Douglas, at one time it's main rival.

3 comments:

Ed W said...

Years ago, I was watching a documentary on the DC-3. There was a passenger airline still flying them for short hops. One pilot said the aircraft had enough hydraulic pressure to operate the flaps or the landing gear, but not both at the same time. He said the procedure was to take off and hit the switch to retract the landing gear. Then he took off his hat, stuck his head out the window, and looked to see that the gear really was up! Try that in a 767.

Keri said...

I did a skydive out of a DC3 (Mr. Douglas) in '96. It didn't look quite like that inside - no seats. :-)

Doohickie said...

Douglas was once Boeing's main rival, but now it is a subsidiary. Boeing bought them out in 1997.

There are numerous stories about how rugged the airplane was, many from WWII. The military variant was the C-47, and there were documented cases of them landing with no tail, and even one case of the aircraft landing with NO CREW (they had bailed out cuz they thought they would crash but the plain landed on its own, thank-you-very-much).

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