Douglas DC-3 “Dakota”

Belonging to the American actor Clark Gable

In 1934, American Airlines asked Douglas to develop a night-flying air-craft for transcontinental passenger services. The result was the Douglas Sleeper Transport, which could carry 28 passengers on day time flights or 14 on night flights. After 40 of these convertible aircraft had left the Douglas factory, work started on the much longer production run of the specialized DC-3 version. By the outbreak of World War II, 539 of these had been built (DC-3, DC-3A e DC-3B), followed by a further 10.047, prevalently in military versions (plus about 2500 more under license) with the names DC-3, C-47 Skytrain and Dakota, several of which are still flying today. The plane on display at the Aviation Museum belonged to American actor Clark Gable from 1956 to 1963 (N242AG), purchased from the US Navy. The flight logs in our possession show that many celebrities have flown in this aircraft, including John F. Kennedy and his brother Bob, Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra and Ronald Reagan when he was still a young actor. The plane ma-de its last flight in 1986, from the USA to Venice, Italy.