Although the Douglas DC-2 has since been outshined by its much more successful sibling, the DC-3, the DC-2 was one of the best commercial airliners of its day, with it still being flown today!
Whilst initially designed by Douglas to be a commercial airliner, the DC-2 soon saw action as a military aircraft, a VIP transport and even an air racer…
Pre-Douglas DC-2
In 1925, Dutch aircraft manufacturer, Fokker, introduced the Fokker F.VII, better known as the Fokker Trimotor, to compete with the Ford Trimotor that was under development at Henry Ford’s Ford Motor Company.
Upon the Ford Trimotor’s introduction in the summer of the following year, both trimotors would prove to be quite successful, with both aircraft becoming integral aircraft in the fleets of early commercial airlines.
However, the Fokker Trimotor was made primarily out of wood, which would get damp constantly flying at high altitudes, causing it to rot. Due to lax aerial safety laws at the time, airlines didn’t check the wood, thus flying these rotting aircraft.
As time progressed, this rotting wood would break apart mid-flight, causing the F.VII to have several high-profile, fatal crashes over the course of the 1930’s. Eventually, people worked out why the F.VII was so dangerous – it had rotting wood.
Fearing that public confidence in commercial aviation would fail if wooden aircraft continued to be used, United Airlines asked Boeing to develop the world’s first all-metal monoplane airliner, with Boeing responding with the Boeing 247.
Liking the design, United would place an order for 60 247s, essentially locking up production of the aircraft until their order was met, thus putting its competitors at a serious competitive disadvantage.
Development
Seeing this, then-TWA president, Jack Frye, approached Donald Douglas, then-head of Douglas Aircraft, about submitting a design for an all-metal commercial airliner that could outcompete the Boeing 247.
Having previously only designed and built military aircraft, Douglas was initially hesitant about producing this aircraft, but was eventually convinced that, if successful, this aircraft could establish Douglas as Boeing’s main competitor for commercial aircraft.
Submitting their design for an all-metal, low wing, twin-engine, monoplane, Douglas’s design surpassed anything TWA could’ve imagined! Within a few months, TWA had given Douglas the greenlight to produce a prototype of the aircraft.
Designated as the Douglas DC-1 (with “DC” standing for “Douglas Commercial” to distinguish it from Douglas’s military aircraft) the aircraft would have room for 12 passengers, and a range of 1,000 miles and a cruising speed of 190 mph.
Following the DC-1’s first flight on July 1 1933, TWA would ask Douglas if they could extend the aircraft so that the aircraft could accommodate two extra passengers, whilst keeping all of its technical specs the same.
After ten months of tinkering, Douglas engineers managed to extend the DC-1’s fuselage by two feet (61 cm), thus allowing the aircraft to carry two extra passengers, whilst giving the aircraft more powerful engines to keep its technical specs the same.
Operational History
Designating this new aircraft as the Douglas DC-2, it would first fly on May 11 1934, before entering service with TWA a week later on May 18 1934. From here, the DC-2 would go on to have a rather interesting service life…
Airline
TWA would become the DC-2’s launch customer, placing an order for 20 DC-2s, and acquiring the sole example of the DC-1, with both aircraft operating on the same routes for the airline.
In fact, TWA would make the DC-2 famous through using them as the main aircraft on its famed Lindbergh line – the first passenger air service designed to connect the east and west coasts of the United States.
The DC-2 were so good, that TWA would increase their initial order by another ten aircraft, going from 20 to 30.
Seeing the success of the DC-2 in TWA service, Pan Am CEO, Juan Trippe, would acquire nine DC-2s in 1934, with Pan Am operating them until 1941 when the aircraft were conscripted into US military service during WWII.
Famed WWI fighter ace, turned airline entrepreneur, Eddie Rickenbacker, would turn to the Douglas DC-2 to help establish his “Great Silver Fleet” that would form the backbone of Eastern Air Lines’ early fleet.
As time progressed, many more airlines would come to own and operate the DC-2, mostly using it as a long-haul transport, where passengers would pay even higher ticket prices for the luxury of flying!
Foreign Licenses
Seeing the success of the DC-2 in the US, many European airlines wanted the DC-2 as well. However, the DC-2 lacked the range to get over the Atlantic, even if it did make stops in Canada, Greenland, Ireland and the UK, like future airliners would.
Not wanting to lose out on additional European customers, Douglas soon struck a deal with Fokker in The Netherlands, to produce the Douglas DC-2 under license, with Fokker paying $100,000 ($1.9 million in today’s money) for the license in January 1935.
Despite initially announcing that Douglas would supply Fokker with the plans and the technical help to build the DC-2, this plan never came to fruition.
Instead, Douglas would build the airframe in California, before shipping it to The Netherlands, with the wings and propellers detached, before Fokker engineers built the DC-2 at their airfields near Cherbourg and Rotterdam.
The UK’s Airspeed Ltd. would similarly buy a license to produce the DC-2 under license in 1935, even going as far to redesignate these Airspeed-made DC-2s as AS.23s, and reserving one registration, even though no AS.23s/DC-2s would ever be built.
Despite Don Douglas’s personal reservations about Imperial Japan, he’d allow Japan’s Nakajima Aircraft Company to purchase a license to produce the DC-2 in 1936, with Nakajima producing six DC-2s for various Japanese airlines in the late 1930’s.
Military
Seeing the success of the DC-2 in airline service, the US Army Air Corps (USAAC) would begin to acquire a number of Douglas DC-2s as troops transports and cargo aircraft, acquiring a total of 62 before the US entered WWII in 1941.
When WWII broke out in 1939, Britain would press almost all of the country’s commercial aircraft into RAF service. For the UK’s 19 Douglas DC-2s, they’d be pressed into service as cargo aircraft and sent to British-controlled India.
In 1940, the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) would acquire ten Douglas DC-2s, using them to train paratroopers and air gunners (who’d later be placed on Australian bombers during WWII).
Responding to the Soviet invasion of Finland, and the ensuing Winter War, Swedish aviation pioneer Carl Gustaf von Rosen would donate a DC-2 to the Finnish Air Force, which would subsequently be converted into a bomber and used in February 1940.
During the war, the Italian Air Force, Imperial Japanese Army Air Service and Luftwaffe would all press captured former airline DC-2s into service, mostly using them as cargo aircraft.
While WWII would be the main conflict that the Douglas DC-2 would see service in. Even before WWII, the DC-2 had been involved in the Spanish Civil War, serving in the Spanish Republican Air Force as a troop transport, for Francisco Franco’s troops.
Following WWII, Argentine Naval Aviation would acquire five former commercial DC-2s airliners in 1946, using them as troop transports until 1958, when they were phased out in favor of more DC-3s.
VIP Transport
Beyond troop transport and cargo roles, the military also briefly considered using the smaller (and thus cheaper to operate) DC-2 as a VIP transport, whilst the larger (and more expensive to operate) DC-3 solely transporting troops and/or cargo.
To that end, the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) had Douglas develop the XC-32, which was essentially a militarized DC-2 with a mobile command post installed in the fuselage, alongside the standard 14 seats.
Although the USAAC didn’t end up purchasing any more XC-32s, the USAAC’s sole XC-32 served as the mobile command post for USAAC chief, General Andrews.
Despite the XC-32 proving to be unsuccessful the War Department would ask Douglas to build two more XC-32s, which they’d designate as the (Y)C-34, with the aircraft serving as the transport of Henry L. Stimson, the Secretary of War.
In 1943, two C-39 troop transports would be reconfigured as VIP transports by the military, redesignating them as C-42s. Here, they’d serve as the personal transports of the heads of the commanding general, GHQ Air Force.
Yet it wouldn’t just be the USAAC that would use the DC-2 as a VIP transport, so would the US Navy and US Marine Corps, who’d designate their as the R2D-1, with the Navy operating three and the Marine Corps operating two.
Following the war, many Douglas DC-2s would flood the market, with many wealthy businessmen and/or corporations buying second-hand DC-2s to be used as their personal/corporate aircraft.
Air Racing
Since releasing the aircraft, Douglas maintained that passenger air travel could be comfortable, safe and reliable. Putting this theory to the test, Dutch flag carrier, KLM, chose to compete in the 1934 MacRobertson Air Race, between London and Melbourne.
That year, the air race had 20 entrants, one of which was KLM’s first Douglas DC-2, which it called Uiver, meaning “Stork” in English.
Taking off from the newly built RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk with 14 passengers, Uiver would fly KLM’s regular 9,000 mile London-Melbourne route (a much longer route than they needed to do), transporting a mixture a mixture of passengers and air mail the entire flight.
Interestingly, at one point Uiver had to turn around, as they had to pick up a stranded passenger, before continuing their journey.
Later in the flight, the KLM crew became lost, managing to fly directly into a thunderstorm, yet they didn’t crash. Instead, they ended up over the Australian town of Albury, New South Wales.
Realizing that Uiver was lost thanks to the thunderstorm, the chief electrical engineer of the Albury post office, Lyle Ferris, raced to the local power station, and ordered them to signal “A-L-B-U-R-Y” at Uiver using the street lights.
He’d then go to the local radio station – 2CO Corowa (presently ABC Riverina), convincing radio presenter Arthur Newnham to plead for the city’s residents to take their cars to the local racecourse to make a makeshift runway.
Upon landing, Uiver became stuck in the run at the end of makeshift runway. Giving the crew something to eat and a place to stay, the locals would pull the aircraft out of the mud the following morning, before Uiver continued on its journey.
Despite its setbacks, Uiver came in second, behind a purpose-built de Havilland DH.88 Comet racer (and namesake of the jet airliner), nicknamed Grosvenor House, and ahead of a Boeing 247 piloted by famed aviators Roscoe Turner and Clyde Pangborn.
Museum
Following the end of WWII, larger aircraft like the Lockheed Constellation and Boeing 377 Stratocruiser would be introduced. To make room for these new aircraft, aircraft like the DC-3 would replace smaller aircraft like the DC-2.
With this, many airlines would sell their DC-2s to smaller airlines, whilst many more would simply scrap them or store them. Over the next 20 years, most people would forget the DC-2, with many remaining examples just sitting in aircraft graveyards.
Beginning in the 1960’s, several DC-2s would be brought out of storage by early aviation museums or by wealthy aviation enthusiasts, who’d have them restored and placed on display.
As time progressed, more and more DC-2s were pulled out of storage, restored and placed on display, all around the world. As of the time of writing there are nine Douglas DC-2s currently on display all over the world.
Whilst not the only DC-2 on display, the most famous of these DC-2s is the former Pan Am DC-2 that was used by the Douglas Heritage Foundation until 1997, that is currently on display at Seattle’s Museum of Flight.
Other notable surviving DC-2s include: the former US Navy DC-2 on display at the Aviodrome in Lelystadt in the Netherlands; the former Eastern Air Lines DC-2 on display at Moorabbin Airport in Victoria, Australia and the former RAAF DC-2 used by the DDA.
Airshow
Perhaps not surprisingly, many of these museums hold airshows, be it annually or just to commemorate a special occasion. And you can bet that the Douglas DC-2 is always an attraction there!
For the most part, these DC-2s are static displays, being wheeled out from their hangar in the museum, to just outside the hangar, so that everybody can see them. Once the airshow is over, the DC-2 is wheeled back inside to go on display.
With that being said, there are currently two DC-2s that are currently airworthy (with several more being under restoration as of the time of writing). As you can probably imagine, their owners refuse to let people forget the DC-2.
Most commonly, these airworthy DC-2s only fly at airshows owned by their owners. Occasionally, however, these DC-2s are featured at airshows that are not owned by their owners, with them often drawing crowds of awed onlookers wherever they go!
If you’re lucky, you may even see a double DC-2 and DC-3 act, with both aircraft performing a stunt together, often re-enacting something military variants of the DC-2 and DC-3 (or those very aircraft!) did during WWII.
Specifications
Having been designed to be as close to the DC-1 as possible, from a technical point-of-view, the two aircraft naturally share quite a few of their specs in common, including their cruising speed and range.
On top of this, the Douglas DC-2 served as the basis for the much larger DC-3, with this naturally meaning that both aircraft have many of the same specs, especially to do with their performance-related specs!
| Specifications | Douglas DC-2 |
|---|---|
| Length | 61 ft 11.75 in (18.9 m) |
| Wingspan | 85 ft (25.91 m) |
| Height | 16 ft 3.75 in (4.97 m) |
| Crew | 3 (2 pilots + 1 flight attendant) |
| Passengers | 14 |
| Cruise Speed | 310 km/h (190 mph; 170 kn) |
| Range | 1,600 km (1,000 mi; 870 nmi) |
| Service Ceiling | 22,450 ft (6,840 m) |
| MTOW | 18,560 lb (8,419 kg) |
Why Was The Douglas DC-2 so Successful?
Between 1934 and 1939, Douglas Aircraft produced a total of 198 DC-2s. Whilst laughable by comparison to many modern airliners, the Douglas DC-2 was the third most-built airliner of its day, behind only the Junkers Ju-52 and Douglas DC-3.
Naturally, this begs the question – why did the DC-2 outcompete almost every other airliner of its day?
For the most part, the DC-2 would sell so well thanks to its technical specs. In particular, the DC-2 sold well thanks to its range, which allowed it to go from the east to west coast with relative ease, something its competitors simply couldn’t do.
Compared to its competitors, the DC-2 was also far faster, having a cruising speed of 190 mph, much faster than the average cruising speed of 173 mph of the time…
Then there was also the fact that the Douglas DC-2 could transport 14 people, whilst the Boeing 247 and Lockheed Model 10 Electra (which was released to be a competitor to the DC-2) could only transport ten people each!
Beyond just being superior to most of its competitors from a technical point-of-view, the DC-2 was also superior from a price point of view as well.
In 1934, a brand new DC-2 cost roughly $80,000 ($1.6 million in today’s money) whilst many of its competitors cost only a few thousand dollars less for a technically inferior aircraft, meaning that paying a few extra thousand meant airlines got a better deal!
How Safe Was The Douglas DC-2?
In recent years, aviation safety has become a talking point for aviation lovers and casual flyers alike. Whilst most modern airliners are incredibly safe, most airliners from pre-1980 are not.
Yet, prior to their merger with McDonnell in 1967, Douglas had a reputation for producing some of the safest airliners of its day, even if the word “safest” is only relative… So, did Douglas’s safety record start with the DC-2, or just happen over time?
In total, 198 DC-2s were built. Of those DC-2s, 37 were involved in aviation-related incidents of some description, resulting in a total of 291 fatalities.
By modern standards, this makes the Douglas DC-2 incredibly dangerous, with 18.7% of all DC-2s ever produced being involved in a crash of some kind. Yet, for the standards of the 1930’s, the DC-2 was incredibly safe!
For the most part, these crashes were due to either pilot error or freak weather that nobody could’ve predicted (with 1930’s/1940’s technology anyway) rather than anything to do with the aircraft itself.
However, six of these DC-2 incidents happened as a result of WWII, with German and Japanese forces shooting down Allied DC-2s, either deliberately, or after mistaking them for DC-3s carrying paratroopers (a common occurrence in WWII).
Legacy
Despite having been outshined by its more famous sibling, the Douglas DC-3, the DC-2 was one of the best airliners of its day, with it leaving a rather large impact on the aviation industry as a whole!
Douglas
As Don Douglas had originally hoped, the success of the DC-2 had put Douglas Aircraft on everybody’s lips. Indeed, prior to the DC-2, Douglas was just another military supplier, but now, it was a well-established commercial aircraft manufacturer too!
The success of the DC-2 allowed Douglas to finance the development of the DC-3, which would go on to outshine the DC-2, being built well over 16,000 times, many more times than the Douglas DC-2…
Yet the DC-2’s success didn’t just finance the development of the DC-3.
You see, Don Douglas saw the expansion of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, and realized a war was coming. Using this information, and the money from the DC-2, he’d finance the development of several new bombers, fighters and reconnaissance aircraft.
This allowed Douglas to eventually position itself as one of the largest companies in the US by the time the US got involved in WWII in 1941, selling the government thousands of fighters over the next four years and beyond!
Douglas DC-2
Sadly, the success of the DC-2’s successor, the Douglas DC-3, has hidden much of the DC-2’s legacy.
At its height, the DC-2 (and by extension the “Douglas” name) were synonymous with comfort and power, being one of the few things that most of America’s wealthiest could bond over – they’d all flown on the DC-2 at some point.
Despite this, there are only a few DC-2s left. For the most part, once their service lives were over, airlines sold the Douglas DC-2 for scrap, whilst only a few were placed in storage.
As a result, only eight DC-2s have survived into the modern-day, with all eight being on display in aviation museums the world over, usually next to the museum’s DC-3, in an attempt to show to progression of the DC line of aircraft.
Future Aircraft
Most famously, the DC-2 served as the basis for the larger DC-3 that entered service in 1936. Seeing the success of the DC-2, airlines began to demand a larger aircraft based on the DC-2 that had a higher cruise speed and range.
Whilst the DC-3 is the most famous aircraft developed from the Douglas DC-2, it is by no means the only one.
Indeed, Douglas’s famed B-18 Bolo bomber, that saw action in WWII, was designed from the DC-2 to compete with the Boeing 307 Stratoliner-derived B-17 Flying Fortress.
In turn, the B-18 Bolo would be developed into the B-23 Dragon, which would also see service during WWII, serving as the faster and better-armed counterpart to other WWII-era medium bombers like the B-25 Mitchell and B-26 Marauder.
Both of the DC-2-derived bombers would prove to be two of the most used aircraft in WWII, especially the B-18!
What do you think of the Douglas DC-2? Have you ever flown on it? Tell me in the comments!