Gallery: The Legendary Douglas DC-3

Friday, August 19, 2022 at 05:06 PM ET

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Dynamic Aviation’s restored DC-3 airliner, named Miss Virginia, flew to Oshkosh 2022 for all to see. [Photo: Stephen Yeates]

Key Takeaways:

The Douglas Aircraft Company, with its DC-2s and DC-3s, revolutionized the aviation industry during the "Golden Age of Flight" in the first half of the 20th century.
By the late 1930s, Douglas DC-2s and DC-3s transported over 90 percent of all U.S. airline passengers, and by the mid-1940s, DC-3s comprised nearly all airliners operating in the U.S.
These influential airplanes and their variants, such as the C-47, have played important and lasting roles across aviation history, including passenger transport, military operations, and continued use decades after their introduction.

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During what came to be called the Golden Age of Flight in the first half of the 20th century, the Douglas Aircraft Company so revolutionized the aviation industry that its DC-2s and DC-3s were flying more than 90 percent of all U.S. airline passengers by the end of the 1930s. By the mid-1940s, all but 25 of the 300 airliners operating in the United States were DC-3s, according to Encyclopedia Britannica.

Scroll through this gallery to see examples of the important roles these airplanes and their variants have played across aviation history.