Quotes

The DC-3

It was the first airplane . . . that could make money just by hauling passengers.
-- C. R. Smith, president of American Airlines.

The DC-3 specifications were shaped by AA.

I came to admire this machine which could lift virtually any load strapped to its back and carry it anywhere in any weather, safely and dependably. The C-47 groaned, it protested, it rattled, it leaked oil, 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.
-- Len Morgan. The C-47 was the U.S. military designation for the DC-3.

. . . four other pieces of equipment that most senior officers came to regard as
among the most vital to our success in Africa and Europe were the bulldozer, the
jeep, the 2½-ton truck, and the C-47 airplane. Curiously, none of these is designed
for combat.
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Give me fifty DC-3's and the Japanese can have the Burma Road.
-- Chiang Kai-Shek

We badly need an aircraft which will provide the DC-3's reliability, its same ease of
maintenance, and a similar low cost. One approach could be to marry a modern
turboprop engine to a modern airframe. Surely our design capabilities are great
enough to create a plane as advanced . . . as the DC-3 was in its day
-- U.S. Senator A.S. 'Mike' Monroney. This former chairman of the Senate
Aviation Subcommittee isn't the only one to have this thought, lots of planes
have claimed to be "the next DC-3." None have succeeded.

. . . as you approached Arnhem you got the impression that there wasn't wingspan
room between flak bursts, not to mention the small-arms fire! To my right a Dakota,
I think flown by Flt Lt Lord, caught fire. Having dropped our load, we banked and
weaved as violently as possible to avoid fire from the ground and headed home . . .
I never ceased to be amazed at the damage the Dakota could sustain and continue
to fly. One came back home with a hole in the fuselage large enough to push a chair
through.
-- Flt. Lt. Alec Blythe

It doesn't look nearly as big as it did the first time I saw one. Mickey McGuire and I used to sit hour after hour in the cockpit of the one that American used for training, at the company school in Chicago, saying to each other, 'My God, do you think we'll ever learn to fly anything this big?'
-- Ernest K. Gann, quoted in 'Flying' magazine, September 1977.

TRIBUTE TO THE DC-3

In fifty-one they tried to ground the noble DC-3
And some lawyers brought the case before the C.A.B.
The board examined all the facts behind their great oak portal
And pronounced these simple words "The Gooney Birds Immortal"

The Army toast their Sky Train in lousy scotch and soda
The Tommies raise their glasses high to cheer their old Dakota
Some claim the C-47's best, or the gallant R4D
Forget that claim, their all the same, they're the noble DC-3.

Douglas built the ship to last, but nobody expected
This crazy heap would fly and fly, no matter how they wrecked it
While nations fall and men retire, and jets go obsolete
The Gooney Bird flies on and on at eleven thousand feet.

No matter what they do to her the Gooney Bird still flies
One crippled plane was fitted out with one wing half the size
She hunched her shoulders then took off (I know this makes you laugh)
One wing askew, and yet she flew, the DC-3 and a half.

She had her faults, but after all, who's perfect in every sphere?
Her heating system was a gem we loved her for her gear
Of course the windows leaked a bit when the rain came pouring down
She'd keep you warm, but in a storm, it's possible you'd drown.

Well now she flies the feeder lines and carries all the freight
She's just an airborne office, a flying twelve ton crate
The patched her up with masking tape, with paper clips and strings
And still she flies, she never dies, Methuselah with wings.

-- Submitted by Mark Dinan, original poet unknown.




Maps and Charts

I didn't start out to chart the skies; it's just no one had done it before.
-- E. B. Jeppesen. Captain Jeppesen drew the first approach charts to airports,
and founded the company that now supplies them to airlines around the world.

I didn't start the business to make a pile of money. I did it to preserve myself for old age.
-- E. B. Jeppesen

I am drawn to the new chart with all of its colorful intricacies as a gourmet must
anticipate the details of a feast . . . I shall keep them forever. As stunning exciting proof that a proper mixture of science and art is not only possible but a blessed union.
-- Ernest K. Gann, 'Fate is the Hunter.'

\To the IFR cognoscente, it's a serious misunderstanding of instrument flying to think of an approach plate as a mere map for dropping out of the clouds in search of a runway, at the very least, a plate is a work of art and for the true zealot, it's a
symbol of man's continuing struggle against the forces of nature.
-- Paul Bertorelli, 'IFR' Magazine.

The map is not the territory, the word is not the thing it describes. Whenever the
map is confused with the territory, a 'semantic disturbance' is set up in the organism. The disturbance continues until the limitation of the map is recognized.

-- Count General Alfred Habdank Korzybski