[SOC] Fw: UK DC3s grounded for Health and Safety Rules

[Bob Krueger]

Probably way too long for a SOC entry but anyway........  de bob WB9UKQ

Subject: UK DC3s grounded for Health and Safety Rules







> Some interesting facts about the old Goony Bird.
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> It's carried more passengers than any plane in history but now the DC3 has
> been grounded by health and safety rules
>
> By MICHAEL WILLIAMS -Last updated at 21:54pm on 24th February 2008
>
> 'It groaned, it protested, it rattled, it ran hot, it ran cold, it ran
> rough, it staggered along on hot days and scared you half
> to death.
> 'Its wings flexed and twisted in a horrifying manner, it sank back to
> earth with a great sigh of relief. But it flew and it flew
> and it flew.'
> This is the memorable description by Captain Len Morgan, a former pilot
> with Braniff Airways, of the unique challenge of flying
> a Douglas DC-3.
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> The DC3 served in World War II , Korea and Vietnam and was a favourite
> among pilots
> For more than 70 years, the aircraft known through a variety of
> nicknames - the Doug, the Dizzy, Old Methuselah, the Gooney
> Bird, the Grand Old Lady - but which to most of us is simply the Dakota
> has been the workhorse of the skies.
> With its distinctive nose-up profile when on the ground and extraordinary
> capabilities in the air, it transformed passenger
> travel and served in just about every military conflict from World War II
> onwards.
> Now the Douglas DC-3 - the most successful plane ever made, which first
> took to the skies just over 30 years after the Wright
> Brothers' historic first flight - is to carry passengers in Britain for
> the last time.
> Romeo Alpha and Papa Yankee, the last two passenger-carrying Dakotas in
> the UK , are being forced into retirement because of -
> yes, you've guessed it - health and safety rules.
> Their owner, Coventry-based Air Atlantique, has reluctantly decided it
> would be too expensive to fit the required emergency
> escape slides and weather radar systems required by new European rules for
> their 65-year-old planes, which served with the RAF
> during the war.
> Mike Collett, the company's chairman, says: "We're very saddened."
> The end of the passenger-carrying British Dakotas is a sad chapter in the
> story of the most remarkable aircraft ever built,
> surpassing all others in length of service, dependability and achievement.
> It has been a luxury airliner, transport plane, bomber, fighter and flying
> hospital and introduced millions of people to the
> concept of air travel.
> It has flown more miles, broken more records, carried more passengers and
> cargo, accumulated more flying time and performed more
> "impossible" feats than any other plane in history, even in these days of
> super-jumbos that can circle the world non-stop.
> Indeed, at one point, 90 per cent of the world's air traffic was operated
> by DC-3s.
> More than 10,500 DC-3s have been built since the prototype was rolled out
> to astonished onlookers at Douglas's Santa Monica
> factory in 1935.
> With its eagle beak, large square windows and sleek metal fuselage, it was
> luxurious beyond belief, in contrast to the wood-and-
> canvas boneshakers of the day, where passengers had to huddle under
> blankets against the cold.
> Even in the 1930s, the early Dakotas had many of the comforts we take for
> granted today, like on-board loos and a galley that
> could prepare hot food.
> Early menus included wild rice pancakes with blueberry syrup, served on
> bone china with silver service.
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> Technical specifcations of 'Old Methuselah'
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> For the first time, passengers were able to stand up and walk around while
> the plane was airborne.
> But the design had one vital feature, ordered by pioneering aviator
> Charles Lindbergh, who was a director of TWA, which placed
> the first order for the plane.
> The DC-3 should always, Lindbergh directed, be able to fly on one engine.
> Pilots have always loved it, not just because of its rugged reliability
> but because, with no computers on board, it is the
> epitome of "flying by the seat of the pants".
> One aviator memorably described the Dakota as a "collection of parts
> flying in loose formation", and most reckon they can land
> it pretty well on a postage stamp.
> Captain Len Morgan says: "The Dakota could lift virtually any load
> strapped to its back and carry it anywhere and in any weather
> safely."
> It is the very human scale of the plane that has so endeared it to
> successive generations.
> With no pressurisation in the cabin, it flies low and slow.
> And unlike modern jets, it's still possible to see the world go by from
> the cabin of a Dakota.
> (The name, incidentally, is an acronym for Douglas Aircraft Company
> Transport Aircraft.)
> As a former Pan Am stewardess puts it: "From the windows you seldom look
> upon a flat, hazy, distant surface to the world.
> "Instead, you see the features of the earth - curves of mountains, colours
> of lakes, cars moving on roads, ocean waves crashing
> on shores and cloud formations as a sea of popcorn and powder puffs."
> But it is for heroic feats in military service that the legendary plane is
> most distinguished.
> It played a major role in the invasion of Sicily , the D-Day landings, the
> Berlin Airlift and the Korean and Vietnam wars,
> performing astonishing feats along the way.
> When General Eisenhower was asked what he believed were the foundation
> stones for America 's success in World War II he named
> the bulldozer, the jeep, the half-ton truck and the Dakota.
> When the Burma Road was captured by the Japanese and the only way to send
> supplies into China was over the mountains at 19,000
> ft, the Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek said: "Give me 50 DC-3s and the
> Japs can have the Burma Road ."
> In 1945 a Dakota broke the world record for a flight with an engine out of
> action, travelling the 1,100 miles from Pearl Harbour
> to San Diego , with just one propeller working.
> Another lost a wing after colliding mid-air with a Lockheed bomber.
> Defying all the rules of aerodynamics, and with only a stub
> remaining, the plane landed, literally, on a wing and a prayer.
> Once, a Dakota pilot carrying paratroops across the Channel to France
> heard an enormous bang.
> He went aft to find half the plane had been blown away, including part of
> the rudder.
> With engines still turning, he managed to skim the wave-tops before
> finally making it to safety.
> Another wartime Dakota was rammed by a Japanese fighter that fell to
> earth, while the American crew returned home in their
> severely damaged - but still airborne - plane and were given the
> distinction of "downing an enemy aircraft".
> Another DC-3 was peppered with 3,000 bullets in the wings and fuselage by
> Japanese fighters.
> It made it back to base, was repaired with canvas patches and glue and
> then sent back into the air.
> During the evacuation of Saigon in 1975, a Dakota crew managed to cram
> aboard 98 Vietnamese orphans, although the plane was
> supposed to carry no more than 30 passengers.
> In addition to its rugged military service, it was the DC-3 which
> transformed commercial passenger flying in the post-war years.
> Easily converted to a passenger plane, it introduced the idea of
> affordable air travel to a world which had previously seen it
> as exclusively for the rich.
> Flights across America could be completed in about 15 hours (with three
> stops for refuelling), compared with the previous
> reliance on short hops in commuter aircraft during the day and train
> travel overnight.
> It made the world a smaller place, gave people the opportunity for the
> first time to see previously inaccessible destinations
> and became a romantic symbol of travel.
> The DC-3's record has not always been perfect.
> After the war, military-surplus Dakotas were cheap, often poorly
> maintained and pushed to the limit by their owners.
> Accidents were frequent.
> One of the most tragic happened in 1962, when Zulu Bravo, a Channel
> Airways flight from Jersey, slammed into a hillside on the
> Isle of Wight in thick fog.
> All three crew died and nine of the 14 passengers, but the accident
> changed the course of aviation history.
> The local radar, incredibly, had been switched off because it was a
> Sunday.
> The national air safety rules were changed to ensure it never happened
> again.
> "The DC-3 was, and is, unique," wrote the novelist and aviation writer
> Ernest Gann, "since no other flying machine has cruised
> every sky known to mankind, been so admired, cherished, glamorised, known
> the touch of so many pilots and sparked so many
> tributes.
> "It was without question the most successful aircraft ever built and even
> in this jet age it seems likely the surviving DC-3s
> may fly about their business for ever."
> This may be no exaggeration. Next month, Romeo Alpha and Papa Yankee begin
> a farewell tour of Britain 's airports before
> carrying their final passengers at the International Air Tattoo at RAF
> Fairford on July 16.
> But after their retirement, there will still be Dakotas flying in the
> farthest corners of the world, kept going with love,
> dedication and sheer ingenuity.
> Nearly three-quarters of a century after they first entered service, it's
> still possible to get a Dakota ride somewhere in the
> world.
> I recently took a DC-3 into the heart of the Venezuelan jungle - to the
> "Lost World" made famous in the novel by Sir Arthur
> Conan Doyle.
> It is one of the most remote regions on the planet - where the venerable
> old planes have long been used because they can be
> manoeuvred like birds in the wild terrain.
> It's a scary experience being strapped into a torn canvas chair, raked
> back at an alarming angle (walking along the aisle of a
> stationary Dakota is like climbing a steep hill) as you wait for take-off.
> The engines spew smoke and oil as they judder into life with what DC-3
> fans describe as "music" but to me sounded like the
> hammering of a thousand pneumatic drills.
> But soon you are skimming the legendary flat-topped mountains protruding
> from the jungle below, purring over wild rivers and the
> Angel Falls , the world's highest rapids.
> Suddenly the ancient plane drops like a stone to a tiny landing strip just
> visible in the trees.
> The pilot dodges bits of dismantled DC-3 engines scattered on the ground
> and avoids a stray dog as he touches down with scarcely
> a bump.
> How did he do it without air traffic control and the minimum of
> navigational aids?
> "'C'est facile - it's easy," he shrugged.
> Today, many DC-3s live on throughout-the world as crop-sprayers,
> surveillance patrols, air freighters in forgotten African
> states and even luxury executive transports.
> One, owned by a Houston lumber company, had mink-covered doorknobs while
> another, belonging to a Texas rancher, had sofas and
> reclining chairs upholstered with the skins of unborn calves.
> In Jaipur , India , a Dakota is licensed for flying wedding ceremonies.
> Even when they have ended their aerial lives, old Dakotas have become
> mobile homes, hamburger stands and hen houses.
> One even serves as a football team changing room.
> Clark Gable's private DC-3, which once ferried chums such as John and
> Bobby Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra and Ronald
> Reagan, is in a theme park in San Marino .
> But don't assume it won't run again. Some of the oldest hulks have been
> put back in the skies.
> The ancient piston engines are replaced by modern turboprops, and many a
> pilot of a modern jet has been astonished to find a
> Dakota alongside him on the climb away from the runway.
> So what is the enduring secret of the DC-3?
> David Egerton, professor of the history of science and technology at
> Imperial College , London , says we should rid our minds of
> the idea that the most recent inventions are always the best.
> "The very fact that the DC-3 is still around, and performing a useful role
> in the world, is a powerful reminder that the latest
> and most expensive technology is not always the one that changes history,"
> he says.
> It's long been an aviation axiom that "the only replacement for the DC-3
> is another DC-3".
> So it's fortunate that at least one seems likely to be around for a very
> long time to come.
> In 1946, a DC-3 on a flight from Vienna to Pisa crashed into the top of
> the Rosenlaui Glacier in the Swiss Alps.
> The aircraft was not damaged and all the passengers were rescued, but it
> quickly began to disappear as a blinding snowstorm
> raged.
> Swiss engineers have calculated that it will take 600 years for it to
> slide down inside the glacier and emerge at the bottom.
> And it wouldn't be surprising to discover that it's still in perfect
> working order.







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