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Thanks for posting the photo of the highly polished EAL aircraft from Eddie Rickenbeckers "Great Silver Fleet" our museum at Moorabbin in Australia has a DC-2 that was one of the first 10 aircraft used by him to establish that brand, and which were later sold to the RAAF for service in Australia.
Our DC-2 still retains its port entry passenger door, while most of the other surviving RAAF DC-2's were modified to C-39 type cargo doors.
http://aarg.com.au/DC2.htmwe also have an original pre-war DC-3 that was impressed off the production line off American Airlines orders and served as a C-50 with the USAAC and later the RAAF, it was built with a starboard entry passenger door and retained it as a C-50 all through its military service, however on demobbing into post war Australian airline service it was converted to portside entry passenger door along with all the former C-47s that had their cargo doors removed and modification to passenger "DC-3s".
http://aarg.com.au/DC3.htmI understood the DC-2 universally had port doors to maintain compatibility with the operations of the earlier wooden/biplane airliners it was replacing, but that the DC-3 operators such as American Airlines opted for starboard doors, which I understand are now quite rare as most C-47 conversions around the world fitted the port door as part of the removal / conversion of the Cargo doors?
Regards
Mark Pilkington
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