The Last Propliner?

Propeller-driven aircraft changed the world

The Douglas DC-3 is the aircraft that changed the world. Known by a variety of sub-types and nicknames, most popularly ‘Dakota’ in Britain and her colonies, and ‘Gooney Bird’ in the US, Donald Douglas’s peerless creation is still the most-produced airliner in the world. The vast numbers of surplus military C-47s available after the Second World War, meant that practically every start-up airline (including Air Ceylon in 1947) began life with Dakotas providing the lift.