DC-3, C-47, Dakota, and all license built or copies

[GTX]

Hi folks,

An idea I've been thinking about for a while is a Jet DC-3 whiff - in much the same way as the Vickers VC.1 Viking was fitted with Rolls-Royce Nene turbojets to create the first British pure jet transport aircraft (see below).  I'm thinking maybe a little earlier though and using say a pair of Rolls-Royce Derwents:




Any other ideas for whiff DC-3s?

Regards,

Greg

[Maverick]

in the 'Afghanistan Fire Force' thread, there was discussion of a Rhodie Dak acting as a gunship.  Burncycle suggested adding an RCL, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought that forward firing underwing RCLs would be better.  Also mentioned using the Dak as a bomber with Frantans (napalm tanks).

Mav

[Radish]

Add lots of nice bumps and aerials for elint stuff.

Add Darts for enhanced performance on a military machine.

Add underfuselage tank for firebombing.

Add a 3rd radial engine in an extended nose.

Add top and side gun positions for a bomber, with an extended nose with fixed machine guns and a bomb aimer's clear panel.

Add a V-tail.  

[dy031101]

Add top and side gun positions for a bomber, with an extended nose with fixed machine guns and a bomb aimer's clear panel.

Technically speaking, would extensive modification be needed to install a twin .50 MG turret on the dorsal position?

After reading that ROCAF used DC-3 to drop grenades onto communist supply line at night during the civil war, I began imagining when playing CFS2 about a bit more thorough bomber version of DC-3 used by ROCAF against Japanese (assuming that the US didn't drop atom bombs).

Modifications include a dorsal twin .50 turret (maybe salvaged from B-25 lost in action), one waist  .50 MG shooting out of a window on each side.  At the beginning I was thinking under fuselage bomb racks, but after reading postwar South American bomber mods (having bombs rolling out of the cargo hold via existing doors) I thought of it as seemingly more elegant......

[Burncycle]

One of the russian DC-3s (called Li-2 I think) had a dorsal turret.

DC-3's were used as level bombers during the soccer wars, but I don't think they had much effect.

I'd like to have seen a gunship version with a 75mm pack howitzer in the door on a recoiling mount, maybe a couple of 20mm in the windows.

[RCoulterSr]

Add top and side gun positions for a bomber, with an extended nose with fixed machine guns and a bomb aimer's clear panel.

Technically speaking, would extensive modification be needed to install a twin .50 MG turret on the dorsal position?

After reading that ROCAF used DC-3 to drop grenades onto communist supply line at night during the civil war, I began imagining when playing CFS2 about a bit more thorough bomber version of DC-3 used by ROCAF against Japanese (assuming that the US didn't drop atom bombs).

Modifications include a dorsal twin .50 turret (maybe salvaged from B-25 lost in action), one waist  .50 MG shooting out of a window on each side.  At the beginning I was thinking under fuselage bomb racks, but after reading postwar South American bomber mods (having bombs rolling out of the cargo hold via existing doors) I thought of it as seemingly more elegant......

Well, if you decide to butcher a 1/48 C-47 or DC-3 let me know. I've got at least one turret assembly. complete, from a Monogram B-25. I may possibly have 2.
Let me know.

[PanzerWulff]

how about a DC-3 with a big full fuselage float and 2 decent size ones for the wingtip floats lol the ultimate "GOONEY BIRD"    

[Daryl J.]

Since the Monogram AC-47 is out and has paddle props:

Return it to a modified C-47 status with extra filtration for desert air, night exhausts, remove the upper blister,  paint it up in Tamiya Desert Yellow and trim it in white/green for the EgypTours C-47 used by the Mercenaries of Marrakech.  There would be a blend of seats and cargo.   Accompany it with a Tamiya Desert Kubelwagen and the soft top have the same green/white.    No miniguns since the time frame is 1953-1955 or so and the tour goes from Cairo down to Luxor with occasional jaunts over to Tangier or into the Afar Depression in Ethiopia.

BTW, could the C-47 carry a Willys?


,
Daryl J.

[Burncycle]

BTW, could the C-47 carry a Willys?

http://members.aol.com/WW2JeepMBGPW/Photos/JeepItalyC47.jpg

[Weaver]

Well when Basler do a Turbo-Dak, they have to add a serious fuselage plug just behind the cockpit to maintain the CofG, given that the PT-6As are MUCH lighter than the radials. Looking at that plug, it occured to me that you could fit the EMI Searchwater dome from the little AEW Islander, to give a much bigger cheapo-AEW platform.....

Kit-wise, you'd probably be looking at nicking the radome off an AEW Gannet or Avenger or something similar, if such a kit exists, of course....

[gooberliberation]

Well when Basler do a Turbo-Dak, they have to add a serious fuselage plug just behind the cockpit to maintain the CofG, given that the PT-6As are MUCH lighter than the radials.

Conway's(?) turbine conversion puts a third turboprop in the nose. That's another way to get around ther CofG problem.

[Mossie]

For a jet engine Dak, how about a version as you mentioned with two Nenes/J42's, followed by a DC-4 when it was realised that the tail dragger configuration was not the way forward, maybe with four Derwents/J33's?  Similar to how the Avro Tudor Mk.8 developed into the Avro Ashton.

[jcf]

Any early Douglas development of turbo-jet aircraft as suggested would require the removal or death of Donald Douglas, he was publicly doubtful of the potential commercial market and, along with the Douglas board, chary of spending the necessary funds. The DC-8 was launched largely because Boeing was determined to go ahead with the 707.

The preferred Douglas scheme was for turbo-prop developments of existing airframes.

Jon

[Daryl J.]

So a potential aircraft from Donald Douglas could be a stretched DC-3 with an added wing center section making it 4 engines like what Derek Pennington (?) made some time back on Hyperscale except with 4 turboprops.    Could this be the alternate for the P-3C Orion?




Daryl J.

[jcf]

So a potential aircraft from Donald Douglas could be a stretched DC-3 with an added wing center section making it 4 engines like what Derek Pennington (?) made some time back on Hyperscale except with 4 turboprops.    Could this be the alternate for the P-3C Orion?


Daryl J.

In many ways the original DC-4 design (later designated DC-4E) was an enlarged DC-3, the design was abandoned and the Douglas designers went back to the drawing board and produced the more familiar DC-4/C-54 family. Look at the fuselage of the DC-4/C-54 and you'll see a resemblance to the DC-3, in many ways it is your stretched DC-3.  The DC-4 begat the DC-6 which begat the DC-7.

I suppose a heavily redesigned turbo-prop DC-4 could have been a competitor for the Lockheed L-188 Electra and thus possibly in the running for what became the P-3, the problem is the DC prop jobs all precede the Lockheed by many years (DC-4 late 30s, L-188 mid 50s) and as such would not be technologically competitive.

Any jet conversions or DC-3 stretches originating from Douglas are very doubtful, of course that doesn't mean someone else couldn't have played around with such notions.

Taking a different tack with Douglas one could pursue the Mixmaster idea, the first concept designated DC-8 used that propulsion setup.
Maybe semi-buried turbine engines driving a contra-prop pusher setup in place of the Allison V-3420 engines that were planned.

Jon