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00:02August 1957.
00:07In the skies above Missouri, an Air Force plane is in trouble.
00:13Out of gas, pilot and crew bail out.
00:17What happens next would become the stuff of legend.
00:21The unpiloted plane should have crashed.
00:26Instead, it makes a perfect landing.
00:32This is the story of the DC-3.
00:36The plane that defined the way we fly.
00:43It heralded a new era of air travel.
00:47It was very glamorous.
00:50Mostly celebrities and businessmen.
00:54And became a war hero.
00:57I've seen them come in with holes in the wings and the motor shot out.
01:00Everything else.
01:03Go, go, go!
01:05A maverick from its inception.
01:08Here comes the Douglas Company coming in with,
01:10we're going to give you something revolutionary here.
01:14Its development laid the cornerstones of aviation as we know it today.
01:19It is truly the linchpin of American and global air transport.
01:24It's the plane that created a revolution and changed the world.
01:41June 5th, 1944.
01:45The night before D-Day.
01:5013,000 US paratroopers board a fleet of C-47 planes bound for France.
01:56It's the biggest airborne operation in history.
02:02Among those aboard is 21-year-old Don Jakeway of the 82nd Airborne Division.
02:09They were sitting on the plane that we were going over.
02:11I was kind of sitting back and I'm thinking to myself,
02:15what am I doing here?
02:16They'll need to fly low over territory bristling with German anti-aircraft guns.
02:23But their planes have no weapons, nor even protective armour.
02:28Because the C-47 is actually a DC-3.
02:32A passenger plane, lightly modified for the military.
02:37The odds of surviving their mission are horrendous.
02:41General Ridgway said you can expect 85% casualty rate.
02:46That means 85 out of 100 will not make it.
02:52But the paratroopers have faith that the big ugly plane they call the Goonie Bird
02:57will get them to their destination.
03:01One of the pilots that night is Julian Bud Rice.
03:06C-47 tended to flap their wings like a bird out there, you know.
03:11They were very...
03:12They had very large wingspan.
03:14And so they tended to bounce around a lot.
03:17They were very reliable.
03:21The fleet flying close formation, according to plan, across the English Channel.
03:28But on reaching France, they run into trouble.
03:32We hit landfall.
03:34Suddenly, there was a land fog.
03:38Everyone in the formation disappeared from sight.
03:41It was total blackout.
03:44When Bud emerges from the fog, all hell breaks loose.
03:51When I came off, I could see a lot of planes hit by flack.
03:55And exploding in the air.
03:58And others that maybe collided, went down.
04:02This was five minutes of just sheer terror.
04:07The Allies are depending on the C-47s to make it through.
04:11Deliver the paratroopers and help liberate France from Hitler's clutches.
04:17It's a heavy burden for a military aircraft,
04:20let alone for a plane that began life as a regular passenger airliner.
04:31It's story begins in 1932, with the arrival of a letter at the offices of airplane manufacturer, the Douglas Aircraft
04:40Company.
04:43Addressed to company boss Donald Douglas, it comes from Jack Fry, head of TWA.
04:50Then, a new airline with big ambitions.
04:55This is no routine business letter.
05:00It would prove to be the birth certificate of a plane that would revolutionize air travel.
05:10In the 30s, the passenger airline business is still in its infancy.
05:15And flying is wildly expensive.
05:19The cost of a ticket to California from New York was about $300.
05:26It still is.
05:28But in 1930, that could buy you a car.
05:32With the US in the midst of the Great Depression, flying is strictly for the super rich.
05:38But a flight aboard an early commercial airplane is far from luxurious.
05:45You see the advertisements and everyone's happy and smiling and eating well.
05:50But that was not the reality.
05:52They were noisy, drafty, uncomfortable, relatively slow.
05:59You had a lot of engine fumes and gas and waste under the cockpit.
06:04People did not feel very well, necessarily, after flying these.
06:10You were flying 5,000 feet above the surface.
06:14So you're in the very turbulent air.
06:20On a lovely, calm day, you had a very smooth ride.
06:23If not, you were bounced all over the sky.
06:26Worse, taking a flight in the early passenger planes could be downright dangerous.
06:34In 1931, disaster strikes.
06:41A TWA plane with eight people on board crashes into a Kansas prairie.
06:48An airplane fell apart, literally, in the sky, killing all its passengers,
06:53one of whom was Newt Rockne, the legendary football coach of Notre Dame.
07:02It wasn't weather, it wasn't pilot error.
07:05The darn thing had rotted out from inside.
07:13The crash is a wake-up call to the airline industry.
07:18Before air travel could become profitable, it first had to become safe and affordable.
07:25Fear of flying, if the airplane was going to come apart in some way,
07:29or fares that they were so expensive that only the very wealthy could fly,
07:34those are the two things holding back the growth of aviation.
07:39Boeing is the first to respond with a new plane that would electrify the industry.
07:46The Boeing 247.
07:49The Boeing 247 is considered the world's first modern airliner.
07:54Boeing's new plane is 50% faster than the widely used Ford trimotor,
07:59while using a fifth less horsepower.
08:03Incredibly efficient.
08:06Its monoplane design, with one set of low-lying cantilevered wings, minimizes drag.
08:14It is robustly made of aluminum alloy,
08:18and is stable in flight, which makes for a more comfortable ride.
08:24All these were very important factors that made the 247 a revolutionary airplane.
08:32United Airlines promptly orders 59 247s,
08:36an order that would keep Boeing busy for two years.
08:41That leaves United with the best plane on the market,
08:45and its rivals out in the cold.
08:49The Boeing Company made it very clear to the airlines
08:51that you can have our 247 after United has all theirs.
08:57One airline isn't prepared to wait.
09:00The boss of TWA issues his momentous challenge to the aviation industry.
09:06Build me a plane to rival the 247.
09:11Among the companies that responded to that
09:13was the Douglas Company of California, headed by Donald Douglas.
09:22Donald Douglas was one of the great names in aviation history.
09:26He had been around since the very beginning.
09:30Douglas is a trained engineer, and highly respected in the business.
09:36His word was his bond.
09:38He made countless deals selling airplanes on a handshake,
09:43and paperwork to follow.
09:44He was that well respected.
09:48Douglas is renowned for building sturdy planes for the military.
09:53But TWA bosses don't just want a 247 clone.
09:58They want something bigger and better.
10:03The 247 still did not go far enough.
10:06And that's where Douglas capitalised,
10:09using the 247 as an example of what could be done,
10:13but then going beyond it.
10:20the 247 is going to be the 247.
10:23It's going to be no easy feat.
10:25So Donald Douglas puts his best man on the job.
10:30He's protégé, engineer Arthur Raymond.
10:36Raymond is an authentic American genius,
10:39a man with drive and ambition.
10:42Doug foresees it not only as a top flight engineer,
10:46also somebody who will get the job done.
10:51Douglas gives Raymond just seven days to come up with a design.
10:55The spec is ambitious.
10:58The new plane would need to be able to fly 25% further,
11:041,600 kilometres non-stop and carry 12 passengers,
11:09two more than the 247.
11:12It's a big gamble.
11:13If Raymond gets the design right,
11:16it would transform the fortunes of the Douglas Aircraft Company.
11:19If he fails to deliver, the company faces bankruptcy.
11:30August, 1932.
11:33Douglas Aircraft's mastermind engineer, Arthur Raymond,
11:37pitches the design for their new passenger aircraft,
11:40the DC-1, to TWA.
11:45They are taken aback by what they see.
11:50When TWA saw the initial concepts for this machine,
11:54there was a big question mark,
11:56because it was a twin-engine airplane.
11:58The Boeing 247 had proved that two engines could work.
12:03But still reeling after the Kansas air crash,
12:07TWA had specifically demanded three engines,
12:10two to fly and one as a safety precaution.
12:17The aerodynamics were so poor for the aircraft of those days,
12:21that if a twin-engine design lost power in one engine,
12:25it would simply descend and you needed a third engine
12:28to give it any chance at all of remaining aloft.
12:33Here comes the Douglas Company coming in with,
12:35no, we're not going to give you what you thought you wanted,
12:38we're going to give you something revolutionary here.
12:43TWA's technical advisor is none other than Charles Lindbergh,
12:47who'd flown the first transatlantic flight five years earlier.
12:54Lindbergh is skeptical that a plane this size could survive losing an engine.
12:59Will this thing fly?
13:02Yes, definitely going to fly.
13:06If you can make it fly,
13:09then we'll buy it.
13:13Raymond bet the company on the DC-1.
13:15Their costs were not covered in the original contract.
13:18They weren't going to make money on this thing
13:20until after they had delivered over a certain number of airplanes.
13:24Raymond had used a complex aeronautical formula
13:27to design the DC-1.
13:32To prove it could fly on one engine,
13:35he turns to nearby Caltech,
13:37which is pioneering a new aviation technology,
13:40wind tunnel testing.
13:44One can arguably say that the Douglas DC-1
13:48represented the first scientifically designed American airplane,
13:52and playing the key role in doing that
13:55was really the tunnel tests that were done at Caltech.
14:02The initial tests are deeply troubling.
14:06Despite the bold promises to TWA,
14:09the DC-1 is fundamentally unstable and prone to turbulence,
14:14even with both engines working normally.
14:18It had to do pretty much with the center of gravity problem,
14:21and how this wing and the fuselage fit together.
14:26Raymond doesn't give up.
14:28The team conducts more than 200 tunnel tests,
14:33before coming up with a solution.
14:39Like other aircraft of the time,
14:41the plane's wings are set at right angles to the fuselage.
14:47Raymond discovers that sweeping back the wings
14:50shifts the center of gravity,
14:52dramatically improving the plane's stability.
14:55The wing design proved so successful,
14:58that really, if we take a look at a lot of subsequent aircraft,
15:02we see that they all tend to emulate that moderate swept-back approach.
15:08And to minimize turbulence and drag between the wing and the fuselage,
15:13engineers devise an element called a fillet.
15:19That lovely little compound curve you see between where the wing meets the fuselage,
15:24it smoothed it out considerably.
15:28These modifications create a plane that should be able to maintain stable flight,
15:33even on a single engine.
15:41Wind tunnel testing has come a long way since the early days.
15:45to become a fundamental part of the aviation design process.
15:51The Airbus A380 went through 5,000 hours of wind tunnel tests,
15:57finessing everything from ice prevention to noise reduction.
16:04Back in the 30s, the Douglas team are grappling with the problem
16:08of how to slow down a large and powerful plane on landing.
16:15Their solution would become an integral feature of modern airplane design.
16:21Back then, you didn't really have runways.
16:24You had large fields.
16:25You can't ask the city to build a whole new airport for you just for your one airplane.
16:29So you try to make the airplane fit.
16:32So how do you slow it down slow enough to have a comfortable landing,
16:37yet maintain the ability to go fast?
16:39And one of the solutions is flaps.
16:42Wing flaps, as pioneered by Douglas, are now used on all modern airliners.
16:49On approach and landing, lowering the flaps helps to bring the plane to a halt more quickly.
16:55And while lowered for take-off, they dramatically increase a plane's lift,
17:00meaning it can take off at slower speeds, using shorter runways.
17:09The DC-1 never went into production, but acts as a stepping stone to an even better version.
17:18In May 1934, Douglas reveals their new plane, the DC-2, a 14-seater.
17:27It's even faster and more powerful than its predecessor,
17:31and immediately sets the air industry alight.
17:34The DC-2 came on the scene with a bang.
17:37TWA flew this brand-new airliner across the country in record-setting time.
17:42We have an airplane that's faster than anything that even the Army has.
17:46It was very dramatic, got headlines.
17:50The DC-2 could carry four more passengers than the rival Boeing 247.
17:56It offered a faster, smoother ride, and needed fewer refueling stops.
18:02The plane is a hit, and Douglas production lines go into overdrive.
18:07When the aircraft entered service, it was obviously the airplane to have,
18:10and immediately made the 247 obsolescent.
18:15Douglas had scored a major coup against its rival Boeing.
18:19But its greatest contribution to commercial aviation is yet to come.
18:31May 1935.
18:33Orders are pouring in for the Douglas Aircraft Company's new plane, the DC-2.
18:42Donald Douglas was looking at a full order book.
18:44As far as the eye can see, they're actually making money,
18:47which in those days is almost heard of in aircraft production.
18:52Then, Donald Douglas gets an unexpected call from the head of American Airlines.
18:58C.R. Smith wants the DC-2 for his fleet, but with a twist.
19:03He wants it adapted to create a sleeper aircraft with 14 beds in place of seats.
19:12Donald Douglas absolutely convinced this is a terrible idea and don't want any part of it.
19:17The sleeper is a dead end.
19:19There's only going to be a very few amount of these.
19:21There's not going to be a market for it.
19:22It's not going to work the way out to C.R. Smith thinks.
19:26But then Smith hands Douglas an offer he can't refuse.
19:31An order for 10 Douglas sleeper transport planes.
19:34To the value of $795,000.
19:38Around $14 million in today's money.
19:43This is no simple design tweak.
19:45Accommodating beds means making the DC-2 a staggering 50% bigger.
19:53Usually when you expand an airplane design, you stretch it.
19:57You literally stretch it and you make it longer.
20:00In this case they actually widened it.
20:04Early planes were built around a fuselage that resembled a flying box.
20:09But the inherent weakness of a square set tight limits on a plane's size.
20:17By the 30s, fuselages are becoming more rounded.
20:21Making them stronger.
20:25Raymond and his team push things further than ever before.
20:29What they came up with is the world's biggest circular fuselage.
20:40A cylindrical shape is not only supremely aerodynamic.
20:44But also very strong.
20:46Distributing forces evenly around the structure.
20:49The round fuselage shape enhances the strength of the aircraft.
20:53There's no real failure points on it.
20:56No hard corners or anything like that.
20:58It's just a remarkably strong design.
21:01Combined with the single skin metal fuselage of the DC-1.
21:04Which helps to support the structure.
21:06The new design would allow a big leap in size and weight.
21:14Douglas pulls it off again.
21:16Creating the world's largest and most fuel efficient modern airliner.
21:24Yet sleeper planes never catch on with passengers.
21:27And are swiftly dropped.
21:31But Donald Douglas isn't about to stand by.
21:34And see his groundbreaking new plane mothballed.
21:39More that Douglas and Raymond started thinking about it.
21:43Then they started thinking beyond the sleeper transport.
21:45It didn't take a lot. It was very quick.
21:48Douglas realises that replacing the beds with seats.
21:52Would increase the number of passengers by 50%.
21:57The DC-3 is born.
22:04A wonder of engineering.
22:06It lays the foundations for the modern airliner.
22:14It takes 6,000 people and half a million rivets to build every one.
22:22Above all, since it uses only 3% more fuel than its predecessor, the extra seven passengers the DC-3
22:30could carry make it the first ever profitable commercial airliner.
22:36The Douglas team have achieved an extraordinary breakthrough.
22:40An airliner that makes mass air travel possible.
22:44When the DC-3 came along, there was a real recognition that a new standard in air transport had arrived.
22:51Air transport was no longer merely the stuff of the adventurous. It was becoming routine.
22:58Flying coast to coast had meant a 25-hour ordeal. Now, the DC-3 cuts that journey time almost in
23:06half.
23:08But above all, the DC-3 makes passengers feel safe.
23:12It wasn't going to make strange noises. It wasn't going to smell funny when the gasoline fumes coming through.
23:18It was going to have heating in it, so it wasn't going to be cold in wintertime.
23:21The whole key for the airline industry was to make this normal and safe. And the DC-3 makes it
23:28normal and safe.
23:33It quickly became the airplane of choice of airlines all over the United States and quickly around the world, best
23:39they could get a hold of them.
23:44Flying is now glamorous. The journey becomes the destination.
23:50Would you like cigarettes, sir?
23:52No, thank you. We'll have magazines. We don't have time.
23:54I'll bring one right up. Thank you.
23:56Passengers recline in new levels of luxury. Not an option in smaller planes.
24:02The DC-3 helps to popularise a new role in aviation.
24:08The air hostess.
24:13Vicki Herrell was one of a new breed aboard TWA's DC-3 fleet in the 1940s.
24:20It was very glamorous. TWA was known as the Glamour Airline.
24:25So it was mostly celebrities and businessmen.
24:27You really got to know your passengers.
24:30The men would ask you what your phone number was and stuff like that.
24:34Can I call you when I get to New York? Can we eat dinner?
24:39For the new air hostesses, working 3,000 metres up is better than any job back on the ground.
24:46I enjoyed it so much. I mean, it was just exhilarating. I loved my job.
24:52As one of the few jobs considered suitable for women, competition is intense.
24:59In 1935, 2,000 women apply for just 43 positions offered by TWA.
25:07Entry requirements are tough.
25:12Applicants have to be between a metre 52 and a metre 62.
25:16And weigh between 45 and 53 kilos.
25:21Weight restriction, well, they're very strict about that.
25:23And, in fact, after you started flying, we had weight checks every six weeks.
25:28If you were caught, like, three or four times being overweight, then you were fired.
25:35And the training isn't just about looking good.
25:39We had to learn everything about an airplane.
25:42Theory of flight, we studied meteorology, aerodynamics,
25:46because people weren't flying very much in those days. I mean, it was so new.
25:51A key part of the job is reassuring passengers unused to flying.
25:56Some people would be extremely nervous.
25:57And, you know, of course, I would calm them, try and calm them down.
26:00And I could do that. I could do it.
26:04And hostesses must come prepared for every eventuality.
26:10They would wear a cape that had large pockets.
26:13And in this pocket, they would have to carry a wrench, a hammer, and a railway schedule.
26:20Because if, in fact, the weather got too rough, they would have to land the aircraft,
26:25and the stewardess would have to make sure that they knew what the train schedule was to take the customer
26:31to the train station.
26:36Six years after its launch, the DC-3 has sparked an explosive six-fold growth in US passenger miles.
26:46By 1939, 350 DC-3s have rolled out of the Douglas factory, making it the unassailable Queen of the Skies.
26:58It's estimated well over 80% of all the airliners flying in the United States were DC-2s or 3s.
27:05It was just that good an airplane.
27:07With the DC-3, commercial aviation came of age.
27:11No aircraft in history has earned a greater reputation for dependable service
27:15than this universally famous 21-passenger transport.
27:21The DC-3 helps boost an economy still recovering from the depression.
27:28Soon, it will be called upon to perform an even more momentous task,
27:33helping to save the world from a terrible new threat.
27:44In December 1941, the bombing of Pearl Harbor propels America into a conflict that spans the globe.
27:53The prime of the century, death and destruction is gratitude for years of peace.
27:58Since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan, a state of war has existed.
28:15The army needs a rugged transport aircraft to shift troops and supplies to the front line.
28:21But creating a new plane from scratch would take too long.
28:27Luckily, the US government and military have already foreseen the need for just such a plane.
28:34They took a look around at what the airlines were flying.
28:36They were flying superb transport planes, particularly the DC-3.
28:40The order comes down. Get the DC-3 ready for war.
28:51A keen sailor, Douglas takes the team aboard his boat
28:54to brainstorm how to turn their airliner into a military transport plane.
29:01It is kind of ironic when we think about it.
29:03A sky train suddenly turns itself into a military workhorse.
29:10All they really did was put a cargo door on it and beefed up the floor so it could take
29:17heavy loads.
29:18And that was it.
29:19Such a great airplane, such a strong airplane.
29:22You know, they didn't have to modify much at all.
29:26The DC-3 is reborn as the C-47.
29:32By 1944, a C-47 is rolling off the production lines every 34 minutes.
29:39Many of them destined for the British RAF, who call them Dakotas.
29:45The DC-3 C-47 is an amazingly over-built airplane.
29:49They didn't know how much stress various designs could take,
29:53so they decided to over-build it just to take care of it.
29:58Famously, you could drive a one-ton Jeep through the C-47's cargo door.
30:04It could carry 28 soldiers, and often more.
30:09In Burma, one RAF Dakota evacuates 65 walking wounded.
30:20The C-47s and Dakotas haul troops and supplies to every theatre of the war.
30:26The C-47 was critical for the war effort.
30:30General Eisenhower claimed it's one of the most important war-winning weapons that the Allies had.
30:35Perhaps the C-47's finest hour comes at the most critical moment of the war.
30:43On the eve of D-Day, Julian Bud Rice flies an unarmoured C-47 carrying 21 paratroopers across the English
30:52Channel.
30:54And into a barrage of enemy fire.
30:59You could see the anti-flag burst coming from the ground, and the tracer bullets coming up.
31:08It was almost impossible to avoid everything, so you were lucky just to take some machine gun fire.
31:18Your six-minute warning, rise and shine!
31:21As his C-47 enters the drop zone, eight kilometres from the French coast,
31:2721-year-old Don Jaquay prepares for the most terrifying moment of his young life.
31:33The jumpmaster stood there in the door.
31:35Go, go, go, go!
31:37And if you froze in the door, he had orders to shoot you.
31:42One, two!
31:48When we jumped, the bullets were going up.
31:51You could hear the zzzz!
31:53Like going through your chute.
31:56You know the Germans are there, and the moment you jump in as a paratrooper,
32:00you're surrounded and scared to death.
32:04821 C-47s fly in the first wave.
32:09Astonishingly, all but 21 of them deliver their human cargo to the drop zone
32:14and return home safe, including Bud Rice.
32:18The plane took a lot of hits.
32:21I was very fortunate. I came back safe and sound.
32:24I had no problem.
32:30Don Jaquay goes on to spend nearly eight months fighting his way through occupied Europe
32:36before being shot by a Nazi sniper.
32:41At a hospital in Belgium, he encounters an old friend.
32:45I can see this C-47.
32:47It was a hospital ship that had all the bunks wounded.
32:52For every man killed during the invasion, at least three are wounded.
32:578,000 on D-Day alone.
33:00Now, the same C-47s that delivered paratroopers into battle
33:04become flying ambulances, often using roughly improvised airstrips.
33:10The plane they called the Goonie Bird
33:14evacuates three quarters of a million wounded men from all over the world.
33:18There was no sustained air transport enterprise
33:23that enabled the Axis powers to supply their forces routinely
33:27in the way that the Allies did, thanks largely to the C-47.
33:34The C-47 would also leave a lasting legacy on military strategy.
33:39When NATO responds to a crisis, how does it do so?
33:43It does so with modern airlift capability.
33:45And that modern airlift capability is rooted in the experience
33:49of the C-47 and the Dakota back in the Second World War.
33:56Even though the last DC-3 was built in 1946,
34:00there are still hundreds of working DC-3s in the air.
34:06It is the only pre-war aircraft still flying commercially.
34:12Rob Bolling and his DC-3 deliver cargo to Catalina Island off the coast of California.
34:20It's very cool that this thing survived.
34:22It's a testament to the airplane that it survived this long.
34:26I know it's a really good designed airplane.
34:29So I feel privileged to get to fly something like this.
34:31It's a piece of history.
34:34Rob moves 1,300 tons of freight every year, whatever the conditions.
34:39It's very controllable with difficult crosswinds.
34:43It's right there for you the whole way down as long as you treat it right.
34:48Despite being 69 years old, his DC-3 is still a rugged and economical cargo plane.
34:56That's the good thing about the DC-3.
34:59You can move stuff for not a lot of money.
35:09Back in 1945, thousands of surplus military aircraft are being sold off for scrap.
35:17But the C-47 gets a new lease on life.
35:22Its speed, range and ruggedness make it the plane of choice for a new era of global air travel.
35:29It was the demobilized C-47s and Dakotas, now back in civil service,
35:36that enabled the expansion of air transport all around the world.
35:40It became an iconic global airlifter.
35:46The reborn DC-3 proves the perfect plane for small regional airlines
35:51to spread affordable air travel to every corner of America and Europe.
35:56And an awful lot of airlines, particularly in the United States, but around the world,
35:59now could buy, for a very low price, a real first-rate airplane.
36:05By 1946, there are 1,500 DC-3s flying primarily short-haul routes all over the globe.
36:14The DC-3 was entering the second generation.
36:16It was no longer the primary airplane of most airlines.
36:18But it was ideal for local service routes. They can get in and out of anywhere.
36:27Thousands of ex-service pilots are arriving home to their small towns across the U.S., looking for jobs.
36:36Many of them will take to the skies again, this time for peaceful purposes.
36:42Now the DC-3s cost next to nothing.
36:45You could start an airline for next to nothing and, with some luck, turn it into a viable airline.
36:52Quite a few did that.
36:53And they introduced flying to thousands more people, because now it was more affordable.
37:03Yet even as the peacetime civil aviation boom gathers pace,
37:07the DC-3 is again called to assist in a new conflict threatening the globe.
37:16On June 24th, 1948, Stalin fires the first salvo of the Cold War.
37:24The Soviets mount a blockade of Berlin, cutting off supplies to the sectors of the city under Allied control.
37:31The aim? To starve the people into submission and annex the city.
37:38As conquerors, the Russians are treating the Germans with the calculated severity due in enemy people.
37:46In the British sector, one young Berliner lives with her parents and two younger sisters.
37:53When the blockade begins, Stephanie Plum is just 16 years old.
37:58They closed the roads, they closed the seaways, they closed everything.
38:05Conditions were very bad.
38:08We had just gone through a war and, really, Berlin was demolished.
38:14The main power station is in Soviet-controlled East Berlin,
38:19leaving locals at the mercy of the Russians.
38:24Whenever they felt like it, they shut the electricity off, the water off.
38:31There was not enough food. The children were the first ones to go.
38:38The situation is bleak.
38:41But what the Berliners don't know is that the Allies are hatching a rescue plan.
38:46And at its heart is the C-47.
38:54June, 1948. Berlin.
38:59The Soviets are blockading all food supply routes into the city's Allied-controlled sectors.
39:06Two million Berliners are on the brink of starvation.
39:10My little sister cried all the time.
39:14Cried because she was hungry.
39:16And all we gave her was water.
39:20Like many other Berliners, Stephanie Plum is driven to desperate measures.
39:26In the apartment we were living, there were reams of white tissue paper.
39:31I found them. What a find.
39:34So we ate the tissue paper with a little water.
39:38The Russians thought, you know, Americans would give us up.
39:42No, they didn't.
39:44They didn't.
39:46The Allies mount an airlift of unprecedented scale
39:50to fly in essential supplies and break the blockade.
39:54With their three-ton payload, the C-47 and the Dakota are the obvious choice to lead the charge.
40:02On June 26th, 1948, the first C-47s land in Berlin.
40:09We heard the planes coming.
40:11We said, what are they going to do?
40:12They're bringing food. What's going on?
40:15A plane lands every 30 seconds.
40:20The Allies ship in thousands of tons of coal, food, soap, drinking water, milk and medical supplies.
40:29Stephanie Plum disobeys her parents to go and see the Allied planes at Templehof Airport.
40:36The Germans came like ants when a plane landed, cleaned it out, took everything out, fuel in, and the plane
40:44went off.
40:44And this went on 24 hours. Never was there a stop. Constantly.
40:51In thunderstorms and the rains going sideways and foggy skies, no landing lights.
40:57The sky was for a year, never without planes.
41:02But bringing salvation to so many is not without sacrifice.
41:10There are 25 plane crashes during the airlift.
41:14Pilots must navigate a narrow flight corridor under constant harassment from Soviet planes flying dangerously close.
41:25On July 25th, 1948, a C-47 smashes into a building as it is landing, killing both American pilots.
41:38They were still carrying the wreckage off and the Germans put up a little memorial plaque.
41:45In all, 101 airmen and civilians lose their lives ferrying in the supplies.
41:52The airlift continues nonstop for nearly a year.
41:58By the time the humiliated Soviets lift the blockade in May 1949, the C-47s and their successor, C-54s,
42:07had clocked up 150 million kilometres.
42:12It's an astonishing achievement.
42:16These planes came to feed us and to be good to us.
42:21We never forgot what was done to us by the Americans.
42:26It was so beautiful and it still is.
42:35The C-47 goes on to see further conflict in Korea and even in Vietnam, where it's the oldest military
42:43plane in service.
42:48But by the 60s, its visionary creator is ready to hang up his slide rule.
42:55One day, Donald Douglas went to a meeting with an airline about a new model.
43:02And he looked around the table and all of them are accountants and lawyers.
43:08There are no engineers, there are no scientists, there are no visionaries.
43:13And the fun went out.
43:16The world was ageing around him and changing and he didn't care for it.
43:24After the war, numerous aircraft designers try and fail to create a replacement for the DC-3.
43:34It's dubbed the holy grail of airplane design.
43:40But nothing can match the versatility, rugged reliability and economy of the DC-3.
43:50The engineers, the designers at the time, knew that they knew a great deal.
43:54They also knew they did not know a great deal.
43:57So they made airplanes then a lot stronger and a bit heavier than we would today.
44:04But because of that, the likes of the DC-3s are still flying.
44:08Almost unbreakable.
44:10The DC-3 story spans more than two thirds of the entire history of powered flight.
44:18It's an airplane that wins the hearts of all those who've flown her.
44:22It was wonderful.
44:24It was a wonderful plane to fly, very easy to fly.
44:27And I've seen them come in with holes in the wings and the motor shot out and everything else.
44:32The DC-47 is one of the best airplanes that's ever built.
44:39The DC-3 makes global air travel routine, accelerating the rise of the industrial economies.
44:49DC-3 makes the point to the flying public that it's safe and comfortable to fly.
44:55It makes the case for the airlines that they can actually make money.
45:02Many argue that no other single airplane has left such a broad and lasting legacy on air transportation.
45:13If we take a look at air transport, how it evolved right after the era of the jumbo jet, at
45:19the heart of all that is the experience with the Douglas DC-3 back in the 1930s and the 1940s.
45:28It is truly the linchpin of American and global air transport.
45:34The genius and hard work of engineers at Douglas Aircraft Company created a standard of modern airplane design that fundamentally
45:43changed the way large airplanes are built right up to the present day.
45:49There's a little bit of the DC-3 in every airplane that flies today, no matter where that airplane comes
45:55from.
45:55of the Ukraine, no matter where they were built.
46:04Hungary》镇
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