The airliner that made passenger flying a real business. Douglas built it at American Airlines' request to finally let a carrier turn a profit flying people instead of mail, and it worked so completely that the DC-3 captured most of the world's airline traffic within a few years - a civilian workhorse still hauling freight and passengers on bush and charter routes today, ninety years after its first flight. Developed by Douglas Aircraft Company.
The airliner that made passenger flying a real business. Developed by Douglas Aircraft Company.
Photo: Photo via Wikimedia CommonsSee Specifications for full detail.
The Douglas DC-3 is a twin-engine airliner introduced by Douglas Aircraft in 1935, one of the first aircraft able to carry passengers profitably without government mail subsidies. American Airlines began flying it on 26 June 1936.[1]
A militarised version, the C-47 Skytrain/Dakota, is covered separately in this database. Douglas built 607 civilian DC-3s before the war redirected production to the C-47, and thousands of war-surplus C-47s were later converted back into airliners, extending the type's commercial career for decades; more than 150 are still estimated to be flying today.[1][2]
The DC-3's story starts with a phone call from American Airlines, which wanted a twin-engine sleeper transport comfortable enough to fly coast-to-coast overnight and, unlike almost everything flying at the time, one that could actually turn a profit carrying people rather than relying on government mail contracts to stay solvent.[1]
The prototype Douglas Sleeper Transport first flew on 17 December 1935, and the day-plane DC-3 variant that followed became the aircraft that made that business case real: rugged, twin-engined, honest to fly, and efficient enough to carry 21-32 passengers profitably on ticket revenue alone. It captured most of the world's airline traffic within about four years.[1]
The type's virtue is structural honesty: a fat low wing built like a bridge (the multi-spar centre section shrugs at overloads and hard landings), two dependable Twin Wasp radials, and handling so forgiving that pilots with modest training could fly it into short, rough strips other airliners of the era couldn't touch.[1]
That same simplicity is why the type has never really gone away: parts are plentiful, the airframe outlasts engines, and the modern Basler BT-67 conversion - stretched, turboprop-powered, glass-cockpit - keeps rebuilding 1940s DC-3 airframes into effectively new aircraft for Antarctic science, spraying and cargo operators.[3]
Civilian production ran to 607 DC-3/DST aircraft before the war redirected Douglas's factories to the militarised C-47. The US military also requisitioned existing airline DC-3s directly, assigning them a scatter of designations (C-48 through C-84) depending on the specific airline configuration seized.[1]
The bigger story for the DC-3 as a civilian type came after 1945: thousands of war-surplus C-47s were converted back into airliner configuration, flooding the world's airlines with cheap, rugged twin-engine transports and extending the DC-3's commercial career for decades on regional and secondary routes worldwide, well into the jet age.[1]
Air forces and airlines alike kept flying the type into the 1990s and beyond; today civilian DC-3s still haul freight in Canada's north and passengers on nostalgia and charter routes, a working fleet in its tenth decade.[2]
Ninety years on, more than 150 DC-3s are estimated to still be flying worldwide - flying museums, bush freight haulers, and Antarctic workhorses via the Basler turboprop conversion - with no direct successor ever built for its particular mix of ruggedness, simplicity and short-field capability.[2]
The old line remains true: the only replacement for a DC-3 is another DC-3.
One of the most commonly seen pre-jet-age types still flying, both in scheduled and charter civilian service in parts of the world and at heritage airshow events; visible on Flightradar24 year-round using the shared ICAO type code 'DC3'.
| Performance | |
| Max Speed | 200 kn (230 mph / 370 km/h) |
|---|---|
| Cruise SpeedCruise Speed — The economical speed an aircraft sustains for the bulk of a flight - lower than maximum speed, chosen for the best balance of time and fuel burn. Glossary → | 207 mph |
| RangeRange — How far an aircraft can fly without refuelling. Quoted figures vary with payload, speed and reserves - see also ferry range and combat radius. Glossary → | 1,720 mi |
| Service CeilingService Ceiling — The highest altitude at which an aircraft can still climb at a useful rate (typically 100 ft/min). Above it, the air is too thin to keep climbing meaningfully. Glossary → | 23,200 ft |
| Airframe & Weight | |
| Wingspan | 95 ft 2 in |
| Length | 64 ft 8 in |
| Height | 16 ft 11 in |
| WeightMTOW — Maximum Take-Off Weight - the heaviest an aircraft is certified to be at the start of its take-off run, including fuel, crew, payload and the aircraft itself. Glossary → | empty: 16,865 lb; MTOW: 25,199 lb |
| Power & Payload | |
| Engines | 2 x Pratt & Whitney R-1830 Twin Wasp 14-cylinder twin-row radial engines, up to 1,200 hp each |
| Crew | 2 pilots + cabin crew |
| CapacityPayload — Everything an aircraft is carrying that isn't the aircraft or its fuel: passengers, cargo, or weapons. Payload and fuel usually trade off against each other. Glossary → | 21-32 passengers, or up to roughly 6,000 lb of freight in cargo configuration |
| Program & Service | |
| Manufacturer | Douglas Aircraft Company |
| Origin | United States |
| First Flight | December 17th 1935 |
| Service Entry | June 26th 1936 |
| Number Built | 607 |
| Unit Cost | $60,000-$80,000 (1936 list price; American Airlines' launch order priced around $79,000) - roughly $1.8M in 2026 dollars, adjusted for CPI inflation |
7 notable events involving the DC-3, 1940 to 2019, accounting for 182 deaths. Curated rather than exhaustive.
The DC-3A flew into an intense thunderstorm over Lovettsville, Virginia and dived into a field; investigators concluded a lightning strike was the probable cause. All 25 aboard died, among them US Senator Ernest Lundeen, and it was the deadliest US airline accident to that point.
A KLM Douglas DC-3 crashed on takeoff from Copenhagen Kastrup Airport after the crew failed to remove the elevator gust locks before departure, killing 22 of those aboard.
A fuel leak in the port engine caught fire and burned through the wing spar, which detached in flight over California's Diablo Range. All 32 aboard were killed, 28 of them Mexican farm workers being deported, whose names went unreported at the time - the injustice that prompted Woody Guthrie's song "Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)".
The DC-3 vanished on a night flight from San Juan to Miami with 32 people aboard after a last call reporting it 50 miles out. It was never found and no probable cause was ever determined - one of the cases later folded into Bermuda Triangle folklore.
A Dutch Dakota Association DC-3 on a sightseeing flight suffered an engine failure from a blocked oil pump; the crew could not feather the propeller and lost control near Texel, the Netherlands, killing all 32 occupants.
The DC-3 developed engine trouble just after takeoff and came down in Ciudad Bolívar, Venezuela, killing 24 people on board and one on the ground.
List of accidents and incidents involving the DC-3 since 2000 - Wikipedia
The DC-3 crashed on a flight between San José del Guaviare and Villavicencio, killing all fourteen aboard - a reminder that the type was still flying scheduled passenger services in Colombia eight decades after entering airline use.
List of accidents and incidents involving the DC-3 since 2000 - Wikipedia
| DST | The original Douglas Sleeper Transport - the sleeper-berth version that first flew in December 1935, aimed at overnight transcontinental routes. |
| DC-3 | The day-plane version that followed the DST and became the standard production model, seating 21-32 passengers and launching profitable scheduled airline service in 1936. |
| DC-3C / civilianised C-47s | Post-1945 conversions of war-surplus military C-47 airframes back into civilian airliner and freight configuration - by far the largest source of DC-3s that airlines actually flew in the postwar decades. |
| Super DC-3 | A 1949 stretched, squared-tail, more powerful re-engined update intended to modernise the type for continued airline use; commercially unsuccessful as a new-build but several surplus military airframes were later converted to the standard. |
| Basler BT-67 | A modern turboprop conversion - stretched fuselage, Pratt & Whitney PT6A turboprops, glass cockpit - that rebuilds 1940s DC-3 airframes for Antarctic science, aerial spraying and cargo operators today. |
| C-47 Skytrain / Dakota | The militarised WWII transport derivative, with a strengthened cargo floor, large freight door and glider-tow fitting - a distinct wartime variant covered in its own dedicated database entry. |
Source: General Aviation News
Numbered as cited in the Overview article. Click a reference to see where it's used.
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