Douglas DC-2

Douglas DC-2
Douglas DC-2 from the Dutch Museum Aviodrome
Type:	Passenger plane
Design country:	United States
Manufacturer:	Douglas Aircraft Company
First flight:	May 11, 1934
Commissioning:	1934
Production time:	1934 to 1937
Number of pieces:	201

Douglas DC-2 of KLM

Douglas DC-2, issued in Australia

cabin

The Douglas DC-2 is a twin-engine airliner of the Douglas Aircraft Company and had its maiden flight on May 11, 1934 from Santa Monica Airfield . It offered space for 14 passengers and was designed to compete with the Boeing 247 . From 1936 an enlarged version was built with the DC-3 , which was to become one of the most successful aircraft in the world.

The military versions of the DC-2 were called R2D by the US Navy and C-32A , C-33 , C-34 , C-38 , C-39 , C-41 and C-42 by the United States Army Air Forces . In addition, the B-18 "Bolo" bomber was derived from the DC-2 .

history

At the beginning of the 1930s, the American aviation industry began to build aircraft with metal fuselages because wooden structures no longer met safety requirements. The Transcontinental and Western Air (T&WA) was looking to compete with the Boeing 247 of the United Air Lines , for an aircraft with an all-metal fuselage and three-blade propeller.

Douglas then presented the prototype DC-1 with space for twelve passengers.

The TWA was satisfied with the basic concept and ordered 20 DC-2s with improved engines and space for 14 passengers. The interest of other airlines was also aroused and further orders were received. The aircraft for European customers, including the Czechoslovakian CLS , Deutsche Lufthansa , KLM , LOT and Swissair , were finally assembled from Douglas parts by Fokker in the Netherlands.

In Japan 5 DC-2 were also assembled and a complete one was delivered. It is disputed whether and to what extent the 5 machines were assembled from components manufactured there or were only assembled from Douglas parts. They were used by Nihon Kōkū Yusō Kabushiki Kaisha - NKYKK (Japan Air Transport Corp.) from 1936 to 1938 . Then 32 pieces of the Nakajima AT-2 were produced there as smaller, superficially similar copies of the DC-2.

Although it was constantly overshadowed by its successor, the DC-3 , it was the DC-2 that showed that passengers can be transported comfortably, safely and reliably. For the private US airlines, the DC-2 was an important milestone in other ways as well. For the first time, they had an aircraft that was economical enough to be profitable just by transporting passengers. Until then, all planes had been heavily dependent on subsidies and orders for mail delivery. A total of 201 DC-2s were built in the United States (complete or as a kit); the exact number of any other Japanese machines is controversial.

The DC-2 probably had its finest hour in October 1934, when the "Uiver" took second place for KLM in the MacRobertson air race from Mildenhall (England) to Melbourne (Australia) and won the handicap classification. The "Uiver" covered the distance in a time of 90 hours and 13 minutes and also beat a Boeing 247 that was also participating . It was remarkable that this DC-2 (despite a temporary emergency landing in Albury (Australia), where the cargo had to be unloaded) was only subject to a De Havilland DH.88 Comet specially designed for this race .

The Douglas DC-2 "Uiver" had an accident on December 20, 1934 in Iraq . It was the first total loss of this type of aircraft.

There were also copies of the DC-2 for military use, for example as mail planes or for the transport of cargo or VIPs (see US model designations in the introduction) .

production

Deliveries of the DC-2:

version	1934	1935	1936	1937	1938	1939	TOTAL
DC-2	55	60	17th	6th			138
R2D-1	3	2					5
XC-32		1					1
C-33			16	2			18th
C-34			2				2
C-39						35	35
C-42						1	1
TOTAL	58	63	35	8th	0	36	201

Received aircraft

The only airworthy DC-2 is operated by the Dutch aviation museum Aviodrome and has the same color scheme as the "Uiver". This is the DC-2 with hull number 1404, which originally belonged to the US Navy.

At least three other aircraft of this type still exist: In the Aviodrome there is also a machine from the holdings of the Dutch Dakota Association, which previously flew for Eastern Air Lines . However, this DC-2 with hull number 1288 is in poor condition and is a future restoration project of the museum.

A DC-2 (construction number 1368) originally belonging to the Pan Am was used by McDonnell Douglas as a museum aircraft; however, these flights were discontinued with the 1997 acquisition of McDonnell Douglas by Boeing . This specimen has been on display at the Museum of Flight in Seattle since 2005 .

A Finnish Air Force DC-2 is on display in Finland and was in service until 1955.

Incidents

From 1934 to November 2017 there were 105 total losses of DC-2. In 39 of them, 343 people were killed. Examples:

• On December 20, 1934, a Douglas DC-2-115A of the Dutch KLM Royal Dutch Airlines ( aircraft registration PH-AJU ) taking off from Cairo-Almaza airport crashed on its onward flight to Baghdad . In the vicinity of Rutbah Wells in Iraq , the plane got caught in a storm with heavy rain, sank further and further until it hit the ground and exploded. All 7 occupants, including 4 crew members and 3 passengers, were killed. The machine was en route with numerous stopovers on the scheduled flight from Amsterdam to Batavia (Dutch East Indies) (today Jakarta).

• On August 11, 1945, a Mexicana DC-2-243 ( aircraft registration XA-DOT ) had an accident on the Iztaccíhuatl volcano in bad weather . All 16 people on board were killed, 4 crew members and 12 passengers (according to another source 4 + 11, a total of 15).

Technical specifications

Parameter	Data
crew	2-3
Passengers	14th
length	18.89 m
span	25.91 m
height	4.97 m
Wing area	87.23 m²
Climb performance	310 m / min
Empty mass	5650 kg
Takeoff mass	8419 kg
Cruising speed	306 km / h
Top speed	338 km / h
Service ceiling	6930 m
Range	1750 km
Engines	two nine- cylinder Wright SGR-1820-F52 Cyclone radial engines, each with 652 kW (887 hp) power or engines from other manufacturers

See also

• Douglas Aircraft Company

literature

• Arthur Pearcy: Douglas Propliner's DC-1 - DC-7. Airlife, Shrewsbury 1995, ISBN 1-85310-261-X .
• Jennifer M. Gradidge: The Douglas DC-1 / DC-2 / DC-3: The First Seventy Years. Volumes One and Two, Air-Britain (Historians) Ltd., Tonbridge, Kent, UK 2006.

Web links

Commons : Douglas DC-2  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• DC-2 Commercial Transport. In: History. Boeing, 2019, accessed July 5, 2019 . 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Gradidge 2006, pp. 23-24, 32.
2. ↑ Gradidge 2006, p. 9.
3. ↑ Gradidge 2006, p. 32.
4. ↑ Gradidge 2006, p. 9.
5. ↑ Gradidge 2006 S. 194th
6. ↑ René Francillon: Japanese Aircraft of the Pacific War. Putnam & Company, London 1979.
7. ↑ Gradidge, Jennifer: DC-1 DC-2 DC-third The First Seventy Years, 2nd edition Tonbridge 2010, 2 volumes
8. ^ Douglas DC-2 (Uiver). Luchtvaartmuseum Aviodrome, 2019, accessed on July 5, 2019 (Dutch): “Sinds 1999 is deze 'Uiver' onderdeel van de Aviodrome-collectie. Het is in a luchtwaardige state. "  
9. ^ Accident statistics Douglas DC-2 , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on November 24, 2017.
10. ^ Accident report DC-2 PH-AJU , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on August 24, 2020.
11. ↑ Air-Britain Archive: Casualty compendium part 42 (English), September 191, p. 82.
12. ^ Accident report DC-2 XA-DOT , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on November 24, 2017.