Saw a perfectly preserved DC-3 at the Pima Air and Space Museum

I was in Tucson last week and spent a day at the Pima Air and Space Museum. They have a DC-3 there with the original Wright Cyclone engines still mounted, and the access panels were open. You could see all the original wiring and plumbing runs, done so cleanly it looked like art. It's a good reminder that solid basics never go out of style. Anyone else seen a vintage bird that made you appreciate old-school craftsmanship?

2 comments

2 Comments

gonzalez.anna8d ago

My buddy got to crawl around a B-17 at an airshow once, said the hand-stitched leather on the pilot's seat and the tiny brass data plates on every single part blew his mind. He spent like twenty minutes just looking at the engine mounts, said you could see where each tool touched the metal during assembly.

the_rowan8d ago

Sounds like your buddy missed the point of an airshow, @gonzalez.anna. All that old tooling just shows how inefficient and slow production was back then.