SHELBYVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — 1937, the year an aviation icon was born – the Flagship Detroit.
Meet Blake Butler, a volunteer pilot for the Douglas DC-3 aircraft based in Shelbyville, Tennessee.
“This is the airplane that brought commercial aviation to where we are today,” Butler said.
It was indeed the plane that changed the way the world flew. “Prior to the DC-3, the only way an airline could survive is with government subsidies through air mail contracts,” Butler said.
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Pilots will tell you flying a DC-3 is the ultimate dream.
“She’s a gentle, lumbering bird, that you have to pay attention to,” Butler said. “There’s no automation, everything is manual, everything is big, everything is heavy.”
Jim Ikard, a retired American airlines pilot, and a captain for the Flagship Detroit, says life aboard a 1930s airliner was quite different from what it is today.
“There were no autopilots, there was no weather radar, there was no GPS,” Ikard said. “If the captain got tired, he’d have the co-pilot take fly awhile.”