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Flying a DC3 from the U.S. to the U.K. via Greenland & Iceland


onetrack

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This is great watching, these blokes taking a 1945 DC-3 from the U.S. to the U.K. for the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings.

 

They leave from Manassas, VA., the first leg to Goose Bay, on to Narsarsuaq Greenland, then Narsarsuaq to Reykjavik.

 

From Reykavik, they flew to Prestwick, then on to Duxford with the last leg.

 

I really enjoyed these videos, it gives you a fair idea of what flying in WW2 was like - although the main difference being, these blokes did it with modern navaids!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A magnificent thing,  when they were first made especially. (about 1936).  and compared with what other types were being made at the time. It's also a good effort to get 80 year old metal back to safe useable condition after often lying neglected and unprotected for years  The P&W R 1830 is one of the most reliable engines of the time, but you still can't just make one out of old rubbish  and expect it to perform without extensive NDT and careful assembly. Nev

 

 

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What is more amazing is an aircraft that was designed as a passenger aircraft, became of the greatest cargo aircraft of WW2.

 

It is utterly amazing what could be fitted in a C-47. The earliest problem for the U.S. Air forces was trying to repair established enemy airfields and build new ones, so the air power of the Allies could advance rapidly.

 

The answer was the Airborne Aviation Engineer Battalions, with their range of airfield construction and repair equipment, that was all designed to be fitted through a C-47 cargo door, and be carried by air.

 

The tiny Clark Airborne CA1 dozer, towed road graders, small rollers, wheel tractors with towed earth scrapers, Willys Jeeps fitted with tipping dump bodies, small asphalt plants, small compactors, and lighting equipment.

 

None of this equipment was entirely satisfactory for carving an airstrip out of raw jungle or rugged terrain - and it all had a short lifespan, due to its small size and lack of durability - but it enabled damaged airstrips to be repaired and level areas to be made into satisfactory airstrips. These Engineers worked around the clock, 24/7, and usually got damaged airfields into shape within days of landing.

 

The major airstrip jobs utilised the heaviest earthmoving equipment, which all had to be transported in by sea, in Landing Craft.

 

Thus, the new, major airstrips carved out of virgin ground, were generally within a relatively short distance from the coast, from where the landing craft had landed, and a distance that the earthmovers could travel under their own power, without needing to be loaded on to low-loaders.

 

http://ww2awartobewon.com/wwii-archives/army-airborne-aviation-engineers/

 

http://ww2today.com/10-may-1944-building-a-jungle-airstrip-for-the-chindits

 

 

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