Did you know about the big adventure of the C-47’s predecessor?

In a recent article about the C-47 Skytrain transport plane (IDE JÖN A NAGYCIKK LINKJE), we have mentioned that a DC-2, the predecessor of the DC-3 passenger plane the C-47 was based on, won second place at an air race in 1934. This brief writing is to add a few interesting details.
 
The race was the MacRobertson Trophy Air Race from London to Melbourne in Australia, celebrating the centenary of Melbourne’s founding. The £15,000 price was offered by Sir Macpherson Robertson on the condition that the race would be named after his confectionary company. A total of 20 planes entered the contest without any limits on the size, power or crew size of the participants. Not counting the starting and ending points, there were four mandatory stops along the roughly 11,300- mile (18,200 km) trip, but competitors were free to choose their own routes beyond that.

KLM Royal Airlines of the Netherlands entered their DC-2 named Uiver. Uiver’s regular passenger and mail route lay close to the race stops anyway, so they decided to fly the race while flying their own delivery route. This meant they handicapped themselves by making extra stops along the way to deliver mail and pick up passengers. On one occasion, a passenger missed the plane and Uiver decided to turn around and land for that one person.

The DC-2 was already on the last leg of its journey over southwest Australia and low on fuel, when it got lost in heavy thunderstorms near the town of Albury. When the Lyle Ferris, the chief electrical engineer of the Albury post office learned of the plane’s plight, he went to the power station and started turning the city’s streetlights on and off, spelling out “ALBURY” in Morse code to help Uiver find its location. Meanwhile, a radio announcer appealed to locals to drive to the racecourse, line up their vehicles, and illuminate a makeshift landing strip with their headlights. The plane landed successfully. It was refueled and pulled out of the mud by locals the next morning, allowing it to finish the race.

Even with the extra stops and the emergency on the last night, the DC-2 finished second, with a time of 90 hours and 13 minutes. It came second after a de Havilland DH.88 Comet, a purpose-built racing plane. Ther were two other DH.88-s in the race, one coming in fourth and one dropping out of the race. Though never designed for racing, the DC-2 more than proved its speed, range and reliability, laying down the foundations of the legend that fully bloomed with its descendants, the DC-3 and the C-47.