The breakthrough moment our species had been waiting for took place on December 17, 1903. On a humble airstrip near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville Wright flew the Wright Flyer—which was powered by an internal combustion engine—for twelve seconds over a span of 37 metres (120 feet). Various museums and aeronautical associations around the world consider it the first heavier-than-air machine to achieve controlled and sustained flight with a pilot aboard. Later that day, Orville’s brother, Wilbur, flew the Wright Flyer 260 metres (850 feet) in fifty-nine seconds.
Yet the Wright brothers didn’t happen upon their discovery serendipitously. These were dedicated, methodical scientists who took their responsibilities seriously, having designed, built, and tested a series of kite and glider designs earlier in the century before turning their attentions to powered aircraft. They even built a wind tunnel to test their various designs, a step that advanced the science of aeronautical engineering tremendously.
Yet not everyone accepts that the Wrights were the pioneers of modern aviation. On September 13, 1906, in Paris, France, a Brazilian inventor named Alberto Santos-Dumont made a public flight in an airplane he called the 14-bis. Though few people question that the Wrights were first in the air, debate continues about which craft—the Wright Flyer or the 14-bis—had the more practical design, and therefore the first “true” airplane. More recently, evidence has been uncovered that suggests an American named A.M. Herring may have made the first powered flight, in Michigan in 1898 or 1899. Dozens of other inventors also claimed to have taken short flights between 1900 and 1910.
Regardless of who actually made the first documented flight, the aviation world changed forever after the turn of the twentieth century. Planes were almost immediately incorporated into military service. Italy sent planes on bombing missions during the Italian-Turkish war in 1911–12. Bulgaria followed, using its planes to attack Ottoman positions during the First Balkan War (1912–13). World War I saw both sides of the conflict use planes extensively, both for bombing and reconnaissance.
On December 17, 1903, Orville Wright laid at the controls of the first powered, sustained flight while his brother Wilbur ran alongside him to balance the machine.
With the end of World War I, the planet was poised for another step in the evolutionary chain of manned flight. Enter the Golden Age of aviation, a twenty-year period between 1918 and 1939 that saw a host of rapid advancements in aircraft technology. Gone were underpowered biplanes made of wood and fabric, replaced by high-powered, single-wing aircraft made primarily of aluminum.
War has a way of spurring technological advances, and the aircraft industry was no different. World War II caused a huge surge in the development and production of airplanes, with virtually every country involved in the conflict dedicating a significant portion of its resources to developing and building flight-based weapon-delivery systems. The first functional jet plane was flown in World War II (the Heinkel He 178), followed shortly by the world’s first fighter jet (the Messerschmitt Me 262), and the world’s first jet-powered bomber (the Arado Ar 234). Yet if there’s one plane that made its presence felt in the second great conflict, it was a twin-engine piston-pounder whose speed and range changed the airline industry forever. And it was looming right in front of me: the Douglas DC-3.
Nobody in the Buffalo Airways hangar seemed bothered by my presence, so I took the opportunity to wander over to the great metallic beast. Like most modern-day travellers, I have fairly extensive experience with aircraft, but exclusively from an end-user’s standpoint. Usher me down the Jetway and I’m quite comfortable finding my seat inside the plastic-and-metal tube that will hurtle me to my destination at a cruising altitude of thirty-five thousand feet. I know how to fold my jacket neatly and stow it in the overhead baggage compartment and can even eat an inflight meal (should I be lucky enough to be served an inflight meal) without dribbling half of it on my jeans. And if push came to shove, I could probably even place an oxygen mask on my face without accidentally hanging myself on the rubber tube. But this was different.
Built in 1942, C-gwzs is one of the Douglas DC-3s that Buffalo Airways uses to fly the scheduled passenger service between Hay River and Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. The plane was the 12,327th DC-3 off the assembly line in California.
Seeing a plane, especially a craft as legendary as the one before me, from this vantage point is a unique experience. Up close and personal, the Douglas DC-3 may well be the most beautiful and enigmatic piece of machinery I’ve ever seen. Its gleaming aluminum alloy fuselage stretched gracefully toward the front of the hangar, curving gently outward to its widest point, after which it gradually narrowed again as it neared the cockpit. The horizontal stabilizers jutted out abruptly from the back of the craft, filling the foreground. I could make out the dramatic sweep of the main wings off in the distance, the hint of a propeller peeking over the top of each one on this twin-engine beauty.
Yet the plane was not about to reveal all her secrets to me from a distance. I got closer, walking her length and running my hands along her smooth yet dimpled surface, 500,000 rivets bouncing under my fingertips. This plane—like each plane in the Buffalo fleet—is no museum piece, no matter how old it may be. No, this is a working plane, a hardscrabble, down and dirty, bare-bones machine that is the backbone of Buffalo’s business.
The “3,” as she is affectionately known, shared the same smell that permeated the hangar, though the primary bouquet was that of grease and oil. As I walked toward the front, the plane began to rise overhead and I could actually fit my six-foot-four frame under the fuselage. No museum piece, indeed! A fine layer of shiny black oil coated the underbelly of the craft. Sheet-metal patches large and small interrupted the otherwise predictable pattern of her frame. Each is a testimony to the rich history of this venerable old bird, whether it be hiding a bullethole from World War II or a dent caused by an impromptu meeting with a spruce tree limb on some long-forgotten northern airstrip.
The Douglas DC-3 is credited with revolutionizing the world of air transportation in the 1930s and 1940s and to this day is considered one of the most significant transport aircraft ever made. The plane was born of a rivalry between two of the most powerful airlines on earth in the 1930s: United Airlines and TWA.
As the Great Depression was tightening its grip on the American economy, both United and TWA were looking to beef up their fleets with Boeing’s new flagship 247 aircraft. United managed to lock down an order of five dozen 247s, leaving TWA high and dry until the entire order had been filled, a process that could take years. Not willing to give in quite so easily, TWA turned to pioneering aircraft designer Donald Douglas, founder of the Douglas Aircraft Company, to design and build a plane that would compete with the 247. Douglas’s resulting design was 1933’s twelve-passenger DC-1, of which only one prototype was built.
TWA asked for a few modifications to the DC-1 (primarily increasing its seating capacity and adding more powerful engines), which led to 1934’s more robust DC-2, a fourteen-seat, twin-engine airliner; TWA ordered twenty of the new planes. The DC-2 was so popular that a host of European airlines placed orders as well. They all wanted a piece of the plane that proved modern passenger air travel could be safe, comfortable, and reliable. And while the DC-2 was a fine machine, it still had room to improve. Enter American Airlines CFO Cyrus Smith.
Smith was looking for a “sleeper” plane—one in which passengers could stretch out and sleep on long-distance journeys—to replace American’s aging fleet of Curtiss Condor II biplanes, so he convinced Douglas to modify the DC-2, using a pre-order of twenty planes as bait. The new plane was engineered over the next two years,