Douglas DC-2

Design and development

In the early 1930s, fears about the safety of wooden aircraft structures drove the US aviation industry to develop all-metal airliners. United Airlines had exclusive right to the all metal twin-engine Boeing 247; their rival TWA issued a specification for an all-metal trimotor.

The Douglas response was more radical. When it flew on July 1, 1933, the prototype DC-1 had a tapered wing, retractable landing gear, and two 690 hp (515 kW) Wright radial engines driving variable-pitch propellers. It seated 12 passengers. The DC-2 was longer than the DC-1, had more powerful engines, and carried 14 passengers in a 66-inch-wide cabin.

Douglas test pilot Carl Cover flew the first test flight of the DC-2 on May 11, 1934. TWA was the first customer for the DC-2, ordering twenty. The design impressed American and European airlines, and further orders followed. Although Fokker purchased a production licence from Douglas for $100,000 (about $2,224,000 in 2022), no manufacturing was done in the Netherlands. Those for European customers, KLM, LOT, Swissair, CLS, and LAPE purchased via Fokker in the Netherlands, were built and flown by Douglas in the US, sea-shipped to Europe with wings and propellers detached, then erected at airfields by Fokker near the seaport of arrival (e.g. Cherbourg or Rotterdam). Airspeed Ltd. took a similar licence for DC-2s to be delivered in Britain and assigned the company designation Airspeed AS.23, but, although a registration for one aircraft was reserved, none were built. Another licence was taken by the Nakajima Aircraft Company in Japan; unlike Fokker and Airspeed, Nakajima built five aircraft as well as assembling at least one Douglas-built aircraft. A total of 130 civil DC-2s were built with another 62 for the United States military. In 1935, Don Douglas stated in an article that the DC-2 cost about $80,000 (about $1,780,000 in 2022) per aircraft, if mass-produced.

Operational history

Although overshadowed by its ubiquitous successor, it was the DC-2 that first showed that passenger air travel could be comfortable, safe, and reliable. As a token of this, KLM entered its first DC-2 PH-AJU Uiver (Stork) in the October 1934 MacRobertson Air Race between London and Melbourne. It finished second of the twenty entrants, behind the purpose-built de Havilland DH.88 racer Grosvenor House (race time 70 hours 54 minutes), and nearly three hours ahead of the Boeing 247D. During the total journey time of 90 hours 13 minutes, it was in the air for 81 hours 10 minutes. It won the handicap section of the race, as although the DH.88 had finished first in the handicap section, the regulations allowed the crew to claim only one victory. It flew KLM's regular 9,000-mile route (a thousand miles longer than the official race route), carrying mail, making every scheduled passenger stop, turning back once to pick up a stranded passenger, and became lost in a thunderstorm and briefly stuck in the mud after a diversionary landing at the Albury race course on the last leg of the journey.

Surviving aircraft

Several DC-2s have survived and been preserved in the 21st century in the following museums in the following places:

c/n 1286 - Ex-Eastern Airlines and RAAF, preserved (dressed as the historic "Uiver", PH-AJU) at Albury, New South Wales as centerpiece of Uiver Memorial at Albury Airport. This is the oldest DC-2 left in the world. It was removed from its prominent position on poles in front of the Albury Airport terminal building in late 2002, but unfortunately kept out in the open air without preservation. In 2014 after much debate and delays, Albury City Council transferred ownership of the plane to the Uiver Memorial Community Trust (UMCT). In January 2016 UMCT began work on removing the major assemblies of the aircraft, and on 12 May 2016 the airframe was transferred to a restoration hangar. Restoration of this aircraft to static display standard is now under way.

c/n 1288 - An Ex-Eastern Airlines and RAAF DC-2, it was exported and located for many years at the Aviodrome in the Netherlands though owned by the Dutch Dakota Association. It was transferred to the Netherlands Transport Museum in 2018 and has been externally restored for static display as KNILM DC-2 PK-AFK.

c/n 1292 - There are three DC-2s surviving in Australia as of 2006; this aircraft, c/n 1292, is one of ten ex-Eastern Airlines DC-2s purchased and operated by the RAAF during World War II as A30-9. It is under restoration by the Australian National Aviation Museum. at Moorabbin Airport in Victoria, Australia

c/n 1354 - One DC-2-115E (reg. DO-1 (Hanssin-Jukka), ex. PH-AKH (KLM Haan), SE-AKE) is preserved by the Aviation Museum of Central Finland (Finnish Air Force Museum) and is on display in a hangar in Tuulos, Finland. The plane was restored to display condition in 2011, in war-time colors. It performed one bombing raid in February 1940. Another wingless fuselage (c/n 1562, reg. DO-3, ex. OH-LDB "Sisu") was on display at the Finnish Aviation Museum in Vantaa.