Thread: Douglas DC 2.5

Only in China!

In 1941, a China National Aviation Corporation (CNAC) DC-3 pressed into wartime transportation service was bombed on the ground at Suifu airfield in China, completely destroying the right wing. The only spare wing available was that of a smaller Douglas DC-2 being overhauled in CNAC's workshops. The DC-2's right wing was taken off, flown to Suifu under the belly of another CNAC DC-3, and grafted to the damaged aircraft. After a single test flight, in which it was discovered that it pulled to the right due to the difference in wing sizes, the so-called DC-21⁄2 went back into service.[19]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_DC-3

Still a great aircraft though.

I don't think the weight reduction was for age/metal fatigue - I think you will find it was for engine out performance. When the aircraft was designed there was little in the rules about such items - all they had to do was convince the airlines that it would fly on one engine.

However, it might be worth noting that the DC-3 has a MTOW of 11430kg, but the C-47 (and most "DC-3"s are in fact this military variant, 607 DC-3s built compared to over 10,000 C-47s. Plus relatively small numbers of other variants) had a MTOW of 14061kg.

Since the civil authorities in this country at least took a dim view of military ratings, all "DC-3"s that had started life as C-47s would have been derated to the original DC-3 rating, although I believe at least some operators had dispensations to operate at higher weights, although I don't believe any were as high as the military rating. (Which does not mean that none of them ever did operate at these weights, especially on non-RPT operations.)

The alloy used for the airframe, purely by chance, seems to be virtually immune to fatigue, which is one of the major reasons for the longevity in service of these planes.

What actually removed them from most airline service was the extensive use of them by US military in Vietnam, depleting the stock of disposals spare parts that flooded the market after 1946. Even as early as the beginning of the seventies I remember reading that they operated more than half the world's scheduled airline flights, although clearly not that proportion of either passenger-miles nor ton-miles.

John