Search Results for: DC-3

On a singular night in 1994, I learned that while there are many risks in flying, like in most other activities, succumbing to fear and panic is the worst possible way to deal with those risks. Flight training, while continuing to place the emphasis on risk avoidance, should highlight rationality in dealing with those risks, […]

Chances are, if you fly turboprop-powered aircraft, you have some time behind the Pratt & Whitney PT6 series engines. My own introduction to the legendary engine came when I first flew the Cessna Grand Caravan—and the marriage of the 182-like handling with the performance and reliability of the PT6A-114A (in that case) made the airplane […]

In summer 1954, I was 10 going on 11; the “going on” part is important when you’re 10. My father was in New York for some reason or another, and my mother and I were to join him there for a month. It was the first great travel adventure of my life. Born and living […]

Throughout its history, aviation has generated some of the most remarkable figures that ever lived, including those brave pilots who made the first forays into the air and who courageously pushed the bounds of flight in ways previously unimaginable. At the same time, aviation has produced a number of people whose heroism rises above the […]

It’s been said that you don’t actually remember an event from your past; what you recall is your last memory of it. Maybe, but I’ve kept little day books since about 1970, so I can usually reconstruct events with some degree of accuracy — both fortunate and unfortunate because it’s all there, the good and […]

I learned to surf in 1996. A friend taught me the basics at Pacific Beach in San Diego. Enthralled by the sport, I would go out every moment I got the opportunity. I did not care what the conditions were like. I’d paddle out in 2-foot chop just as eagerly as 5-foot glass. Snow on […]

When Emily Hanrahan bought her first ticket to fly on an airplane—a Douglas DC-3 flown by Frontier Airlines from Denver to Gunnison, Colorado—she thought she might be interested in becoming a stewardess. It was 1959, after all. After a second trip aloft, her flight back to Denver—invited up to the cockpit by the pilots on […]

The expedition to take 15 Douglas DC-3 and C-47 variants across the Atlantic Ocean to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Normandy Invasion was a monumental undertaking. As the D-Day Squadron looks back a year ago on those efforts, there’s a strong understanding of how fortunate they were to be able to fly there at […]

The call wasn’t tempting at first, but it improved along the way: “Martha, do you still give speeches or programs telling about your background and experiences? Our new aviation club vice president asked me to contact you. Would you be our guest speaker for the Christmas dinner next December? Dr. Frank Van Graas was our […]

Zoe Dell Lantis grabbed the opportunity to work as an exhibition girl at the Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco in 1939—which celebrated the opening of the Golden Gate Bridge just six months prior. Lantis was a 20-year-old dancer looking to expand her horizons, and she did just that, joining an aerial promotional tour […]