Was thrilled to read that some folks are packing a DC-3 with relief supplies to ferry to Haiti. The venerable (75-year-old) transport (first one was named the “Flagship Texas”) was my favorite plastic model when I was a kid. I even have a new kit of one in the closet awaiting Mr. B.’s interest in such things. Well. Hoping. I last flew in one years ago in the Bahamas. It was painted pink. Flamingo Airlines, as I recall.
In Viet Nam 18,000-rpm mini-guns were mounted in their open cargo doors to support MACV advisory outfits like mine, a role now filled by the C-130. This outfit (making the semi-aerobatic, one-wheel landing above) teaches single-engine pilots to fly them. No, the DC-3 was never called the Gooney Bird. That was the Army Air Force’s C-47. But DC-3/C-47 is a distinction without (much of) a difference.
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 
Oh… and I though Dakota was the accepted moniker for DC 3.
Dakota was what the DC-3’s builder, Douglas Aircraft, called the C-47:
http://www.dc3history.org/
The official Army name of the C-47 was the Skytrain. One of my father’s friends flew one over Normandy on D-Day, towing a glider full of paratroopers. He and the other Army Air Force pilots always called them the Gooney Bird. Spooky was the nickname of the ones that carried mini-guns in my part of Viet Nam in 1969.
Lost my RSS when you migrated, I guess. I deleted it and put the new one in, which will probably fix it.
And this tests the new comments whickey.
jd
Nice to have you, jd. Bet you remember Spooky from your jarhead days, eh?