Anatomy of the DC-3

摘要

Although the DC-3 was far more than a stretched DC-2, its construction followed the earlier Douglas airliner design in many respects. In doing so, it drew upon the legacy left by James 'Dutch' Kindelberger, who had led the development of the DC-1 and DC-2 before leaving to join North American Aviation, and Jack Northrop, whose Alpha family of single-engined aircraft had pioneered multi-cellular stressed-skin wing construction. Compared with its predecessors, the DST/DC-3 was three per cent longer than the DC-2, while its wing was 10ft (9.23m) greater in span than that of its predecessor and had 58 square feet (5.4 square metres) more area.