DC-3 Barrel Roll
I don’t think it is necessary to pull 2 G’s while pitching the nose up to initiate this maneuver in the 3. And even if you did it would be no problem in this aircraft. Age of the DC-3 airframe is last on the list to be concerned with, particularly with this airplane. It has very few hours for a DC-3, it did not serve in the war and there was no airline use to speak of, mostly a corporate and charter life in her history. As long as the North American governments don’t direct mandatory evacuation slide installation that can cost half as much as some airframes be installed and the greenies don’t kill the fuel she sips there is no reason this airplane can’t be flying another 75 years. New parts in the box can STILL be found.
My thoughts, are as with any 3 driver is the roll rate. It is anemic at best and there will be a lot of control deflection necessary to achieve that. A 3 driver also knows that this is a rudder airplane. I have two curiosities with the maneuver depicted in the Propliner magazine photo. Where are the control surfaces deflections, especially the rudder while half way around? And of all the people at this demonstration, did anyone else have a camera or video camera that day to capture this moment? I can find nothing on the Web and would guess there would be half dozen videos on YouTube by now but I find nothing.
I’m not saying this didn’t happen. I know for a fact that a 55,000 pound airliner was rolled on more than one occasion during “unusual attitude” training with a particular instructor during my career so who actually saw this please?
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