sletch2003 has provided another wonderful model of a classic. This is the first plane that I ever flew on, which is true for a lot of people! I still remember climbing uphill to get to my seat and I was only 5 years old at the time. From YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylu2AqSZZSE This is a decent video of a completely refurbished DC-3 with lots of on the ground walk-around footage and a start-up, taxi and take-off at the end. The soundtrack is just music, so you can turn that off. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1jmDeiWIRA&NR=1 At the other end of the spectrum, this is great footage of a DC-3 taking off from a dirt runway in Columbia, complete with motorbikes, trucks and wagons. The low level fly by at the end is worth seeing. From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC-3 The Douglas DC-3 is an American fixed-wing, propeller-driven aircraft whose speed and range revolutionized air transport in the 1930s and 1940s. Because of its lasting impact on the airline industry and World War II, it is generally regarded as one of the most significant transport aircraft ever made. The DC-3 was engineered by a team led by chief engineer Arthur E. Raymond, and first flew on 17 December 1935 (the 32nd anniversary of the Wright Brothers flight at Kitty Hawk). The aircraft was the result of a marathon phone call from American Airlines CEO Cyrus Smith to Donald Douglas requesting the design of an improved successor to the DC-2. A total of 10,655 DC-3s were built at Santa Monica, California, Long Beach, California, and Oklahoma City in both civil (607) and military (10,048) versions. 4937 were built in Russia, under license, as the Lisunov Li-2 (NATO reporting name: Cab). A total of 487 were built in Japan, as the L2D Type 0 transport. The overall total produced was 16,079 [4]. More than 400 remained in commercial service, in 1998.