JDiver

Wow! Flagship Knoxville! This aircraft is actually an early Douglas DST (Douglas Sleeper Transport) variant of the DC-3, with the door on the starboard side. One of the few - C-47s and most DC-3s had doors on the port side. And you’ll notice we always board from the port side.

Trivia about those sides: Starboard - named by the Norsemen / Vikings, who put the steer board (stjόrnborði in ancient Norse, and in old English stéor, meaning "steer" and bord meaning "the side of a boat") on the right side of the ship because the sailors were mostly right handed, and as you didn’t want to mash the steering oar the left side was the side that tied up in port. Port side was originally called larboard, “Lade” or “lar” meaning load and “bord” meaning side - when calling out steering directions in stormy weather starboard and larboard were too similar, so it became port side.

That was over 1,000 years ago, yet our airports and aircraft today are designed to embark and disembark passengers from the port side. The DC-3 started out with starboard boarding doors, but soon switched to port - and nearly every commercial aircraft follows the old Viking convention.

I cut my teeth on DC-3s, MEX-MTY-SAT and MEX-MTY-ELP-TUS, where we overnighted to proceed TUS-PHX-Los Angeles Mines Field, now LAX. Our family owned and operated an airline, Aerolineas Latinoamericanas / ALA, and sometimes I flew MEX-MTY-ELP-PHX-LGB when a C-47 / DC-3 went to Douglas for overhaul. When we ultimatly sold the -3s to Aeroméxico, I watched them fly over our house as they flew the MEX-ACA shuttle service for years. I can detect those twin rotaries anywhere, anytime they roar. I’ve been chasing these birds all my life; I love them. Leaky cockpit, loud and vibrating, unpressurized, flying through the weather because there was no way to fly above it.

The first AA jet was the BAC-111, and though it was smaller than a DC-3, it felt awesomely fast and high tech after the Douglas -3, -6 and -7s, Convair Metros, etc. I’ve flown from BAC-111 through Comet and Concorde to 787s and A380. I e flown in the DH Dragon Rapide - in an emergency you could pribably kivk your way out through the doped fabric - and restored AA Ford TriMotor and Stinson SM-6000-B trimotor.

But for nostalgia gimme the DC-3 “Gooney Bird” or “Dakota” any time. (I occasionally visit NC21798 aka Flagship Knoxville in her home at the C. R. Smith museum at DFW. Yes, Lady JDiver knows.)