Warbird Information Exchange

What is the purpose of the door next to the prop?








Cool camo!

http://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry ... rtxt=60154

That's called the hamburger door. Presumably, you passed
"schtuff" (tm) up to the cockpit via that door (hopefully) while
the engines weren't running. If you opened the door while
the engines were running (and did something stupid), you'd
get turned into hamburger, hence the name!

Bela P. Havasreti

I was thinking galley, but I would worry about service equipment running into and damaging the prop.

Last resort cockpit escape door.

Flight engineers seat/jump seat is just behind it, and a long rope is attached to other side of cockpit. Open door, when engine not running, throw the rope out, and slide down. For use if all other escape routes are unusable.

Julian

Didn't they use it to throw out the mail bags at a station on the ground as well?

Lynn

Nowadays it's the door that the aircrew makes the really annoying skydivers use

Shay
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Semper Fortis

it was a forward cargo/mail bag hatch.

I think I saw raw video of the pilots of Ricky Nelson's DC3 getting out through that hatch.

Galley on the DC-3 was at the back, radio room at the front, I thought. The DC-2 had it as well, and I'd go with the emergency exit theory too. Of course there were DCs with the passenger door on the other side, but that door was always front port.

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Raven

What are the plans for his aircraft?

There is a "sister ship" to this C-47 here in St. Louis. I have to say, these ex-IAF C-47s are in the most original condition of any I have ever seen. They look like they took off from North Africa in 1945, got lost for 62 years, and just landed back in the states. We have a nickname for the one in St. Louis but I'm afraid of getting "Col. Rohr-ed" if I post it.

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Albert Stix Jr.
"Work is the curse of the drinking class"

Is that the one at the Museum of Transportation by chance?

Zack

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Volunteer Coordinator/Curator - Military Aviation Museum - Virginia Beach, VA
"America's Flying Museum"
http://www.militaryaviationmuseum.org

Well, I guess they just couldn't stand another encore of "Hello Mary Lou"! Seriously, there has been a lot of talk of the passengers freebasing in the cabin. If true that can't have helped in trying to get out of a serious situation!

T J

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Make my day, punk!

The Ricky Nelson accident was NOT caused by Freebasing!

The DC-3 had a gasoline powered heater iin the rear of the plane. It was leaking, unknown to the crew. A breaker for the heater tripped in the cockpit, and they re-set it. It tripped again and they proceeded to re-set it about 10-14 times! That caused an overload to spark a gap at the generator. The leaking gasoline was all under the floor boards. As the gas ignited, it burned very rapidly, from the tail to the cockpit. Everyone ran to the front of the aircraft. They were all found huddled together in the front end.

A friend of mine, who is an airline pilot and a friend of Ricky Nelson, also flew that DC-3 for him and he knew it wasn't Freebasing. I believe if you look at the official report, it'll tell you almost how I described it. (It's been awhile).
Normal airline proceedures for tripping breakers is to re-set them only twice. If it keeps tripping, there's a problem and shouldn't be tried again!
A very sad, preventable, event.
Jerry

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"Always remember that, when you enter the ocean or the forest, you are no longer at the top of the food chain."

I remember reading about a russian plane where the breakers were on the outside of the plane so that us pilots could not re-set them