Deagostini Douglas DC3 User guide

Brand: Deagostini

Model: Douglas DC3

Type: User guide

The Deagostini Douglas DC3 is an assembly model kit that allows you to build a highly detailed replica of the iconic aircraft. With its realistic design and intricate details, this model is perfect for aviation enthusiasts and hobbyists alike. The kit includes everything you need to build your own DC3, including pre-painted parts, decals, and comprehensive instructions. Once assembled, the model will make a stunning display piece for your home or office, or a great addition to your existing collection of aircraft models.

™

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Build

Douglas DC -3

Build

Douglas DC -3

Build

Pack

Paints and

modelling tools

A comprehensive selection of modelling tools

and paints (in all the colours you will need to

complete your Douglas DC-3) is available from

the Model Space website.

www.model-space.com

Produced under license. PAN AM logos are trademarks of

Pan American World Airways, Inc.

Produced under license. Boeing, Douglas, Boeing Airplane Company, DC-3,

247, Douglas World Cruiser, and the distinctive Boeing logos, product markings

and trade dress are trademarks of The Boeing Company.

Published in the UK by De Agostini UK Ltd,

Battersea Studios 2, 82 Silverthorne Road,

London SW8 3HE

Published in the USA by De Agostini Publishing USA, Inc.,

915 Broadway, Suite 609,

New York, NY 10010

Packaged by Continuo Creative, 39-41 North Road,

London N7 9DP

p275-282 images from the Giorgio Apostolo Collection

Items may vary from those shown.

Not suitable for children under the age of 14.

This product is not a toy and is not designed or intended for use in play.

Boeing licensing identity mark — dimensional

OFFICIALLY

LICENSED

PRODUCT

OFFICIALLY

LICENSED

PRODUCT

Minimum size 13 mm (0.5 in, 3 picas)

OFFICIALLY

LICENSED

PRODUCT

Minimum size 54 pixels (web)

Boeing OLP identity mark | Size

Visual Identity System | Officially licensed product identity mark

Boeing Corporate Identity Program Revision: July 26, 2004

Ideally, the OLP mark should appear in ratio of 1:2

of the licensee’s logo or lettermark and no smaller

than the minimum sizes shown below for print and

web applications.

Pan American

The company and the DC-3

™

Among the many airlines that

adopted the DC-3 over the years,

Pan Am remains one of the most

distinguished. With the DC-3, the

company opened the gateway to

South America, and established

itself as a model of efﬁciency

and professionalism.

ASSEMBLY GUIDE

Finishing your model

Complete the ﬁnal steps and

add the ﬁnishing touches.

275

283

Page

™

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Pan American – The company and the DC-3

Pan American

The company and the DC-3

Among the many airlines that

adopted the DC-3 for their ﬂeets

over the years, Pan Am remains one of

the most distinguished.

On 14 March 1927, three Air Corps

majors – Henry Arnold, Carl Spaatz and

John H. Jouett – founded Pan American

Airlines. They wanted to create a rival

to SCADTA, the Colombian-German

air transport company that had been

operating in South and Central America

since 1920.

After little more than a year, Pan

American had merged with two other

companies to secure connections

between South America and the United

States, creating a powerful union

of interests and skills. The Aviation

Corporation of the Americas (ACA)

had been founded by 28-year-old Yale

graduate Juan Trippe in June 1927,

with the backing of Cornelius Vanderbilt

Whitney and the future ambassador and

Secretary of State for Trade, William A.

Harriman. The Atlantic Gulf & Caribbean

Airways company (AGCA) was created

by New York investment banker Richard

Hoyt in October 1927.

On 23rd June 1928, the ACA, AGCA

and Pan Am merged. Hoyt became the

president of the ‘New Aviation Corporation

of the Americas’, and Pan American

Airways was an operating subsidiary, with

Juan Trippe as its operational head.

The cover of the ﬁrst Pan

American Airways schedule,

from January 1928. The

company served the Key

West to Havana route at a

cost of $50 each way. The

planes used were three-

engine Fokker F-7As,

as shown in the picture.

Between January 1928

and May 1929, the network

of destinations served by

the company extended to

Nassau, Port au Prince,

Santiago and San Juan. For

each of these destinations,

Pan Am received a

contribution of two dollars

per mile from the US

government for carrying mail

for the postal service.

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A new network

With the merger of the three companies,

the focus of Pan American Airways turned

to South America, where its network of

destinations expanded rapidly, especially

following the acquisition of contracts for

the transporting of mail, and the take-

overs of numerous small local companies

that were often in ﬁnancial difﬁculty.

During 1929, Pan Am opened links with

Colombia and Venezuela and, by the end

In 1933, during the period

covered by this map, Pan

Am and its subsidiaries

already served a wide range

of destinations in Central

and South America. The

agreement of 1929 with the

United Aircraft and Transport

Corporation had allowed the

company, thanks to solid

support at a political level, to

concentrate exclusively on

international routes.

With the Sikorsky S-40 (above), Pan Am

introduced the name ‘Clipper’ for its prestige

planes. In line with the company’s image, the

name suggested the fast sailing ships that plied

ocean routes in the 19th century. The choice of

name was a success – ‘Clipper’ subsequently

became the company’s call sign and ‘Clipper

Club’ was adopted as the name of the VIP rooms

available at major airports served by Pan Am.

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Pan American – The company and the DC-3

of the year, with Peru; the following year it

extended its services to Argentina (Buenos

Aires), Chile and Brazil, in that case

through its subsidiary Panair do Brasil.

During this period, the transcontinental

routes were served by Sikorsky S-38

and S-40 seaplanes. The latter – the

ﬂagships of the ﬂeet – were named

American, Southern and Caribbean

Clippers: the name ‘Clipper’, synonymous

The Martin M-130 Hawaii Clipper (registration

number NC14714, shown here), entered service

in 1936, but disappeared at sea on 28 July 1938,

while ﬂying between Guam and Manila, with the

loss of six passengers and nine crew members.

Between 1938 and 1945, three of Pan Am’s

M-130s were lost due to serious accidents. Besides

the Hawaii Clipper, the Philippine Clipper (NC14715)

crashed in the mountains of Northern California on

21 January 1943 with the loss of 19 people, and

23 people died when the China Clipper (NC14716)

sank on landing near Port of Spain (Trinidad &

Tobago), on 8 January 1945.

This colourful poster

shows the huge range of

destinations covered by Pan

Am and the scope of leisure

aviation in the interwar years.

It also promotes the speed

of the service compared to

rail travel. ‘We’ve had boat

trains’, the poster declares,

‘now here’s the plane train’.

Pan Am was seen as the

fastest and most convenient

way to escape the harsh

North American winter and

reach a cornucopia of exotic,

sunny destinations.

with speed and elegance, was taken up

as the call sign of the company and given

to several seaplanes that served between

1931 and 1946.

1929 was a deﬁning year for Pan Am.

It joined forces with the Grace Shipping

Company (a division of the chemical giant

W.R. Grace & Co.) to form Pan American-

Grace Airways (Panagra), a joint venture

that continued to operate along the routes

of South America until its acquisition by

Braniff International in 1967.

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One of the elements that came to define

the public’s image of Pan Am was its

loyal, glamorous and talented staff. More

than with other airlines, Pan Am’s pilots

and stewardesses were identified with the

airline and its guarantee of quality, so the

selection process was rigorous.

In the 1930s and 1940s, Pan Am pilots

were required, in addition to a technical

knowledge of the aircraft itself, to know

the principles of long-distance flight,

aviation and maritime regulations,

docking and mooring operations, radio

communications and maintenance of

the aircraft. They had to know what to

do if they were required to ditch the

aircraft, how to land in adverse weather

conditions, and navigation techniques,

including dead reckoning and exploiting

marine currents. The pilots’ abilities were

particularly put to the test on Pan Am’s

longer routes and the potentially dangerous

intercontinental ﬂights.

The selection of cabin crew was

equally rigid. The minimum age of a Pan

Am air hostess was 21, the maximum

was 32. The candidates were selected

for their ‘good looks and poise’ and –

until the 1970s – had to be unmarried

with no children, and not divorced. The

standard of beauty imposed on them and

the level of service demanded on board

contributed – especially in the 1950s and

60s – to establishing the reputation of the

approachable but supremely professional

Pan Am stewardess.

The company’s reputation was further

strengthened by sightings of celebrities

among the passengers, and Pan Am took

pride in the fact that they were the airline

of choice for politicians and movie stars.

US President Franklin D. Roosevelt was one

of the first, travelling to the Casablanca

Conference in 1943 on a Pan Am-crewed

Boeing 314, the Dixie Clipper.

An important aspect of the Pan

Am experience was its service on

the ground. As this advert boasts,

on ‘foreign soil’ – at destinations

served by the airline – you were

met by an English-speaking Pan

Am representative who ensured

that passengers felt ‘at home

abroad.’ The advert shows the

slogan ‘The System of the Flying

Clippers’, and the logo, with the

initials PAA on the wing and the

globe rotated to show the Atlantic,

dates the image to between the

mid-1940s and early 1950s.

Pan Am Staff

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Pan American – The company and the DC-3

Transpacific service

Also in 1929, the company entered into

an agreement with the United Aircraft and

Transport Corporation (a conglomerate

comprising, among others, Boeing™,

Sikorsky, Pratt & Whitney and United

Airlines) to operating domestic routes

within the United States.

On 21 October 1936, the China

Clipper was launched as the ﬁrst

transpaciﬁc passenger service between

San Francisco and Hong Kong, with

stopovers in Honolulu (in fact, at Pearl

Harbor), Midway, Guam, Wake, Manila

and Macao.

The following year, a connection

across the Atlantic between Ireland and

The reopening of the routes to Europe after World War II strengthened the position of the airline on the

intercontinental market and, once again, the image of the Pan Am Clipper deﬁned the perfect trip, whether

for work or pleasure, to the other side of the Atlantic. However, as this American advert pointed out to

potential travellers in 1946, there were acute shortages of food and accommodation in England.

Twelve Boeing B-314 planes

were bought by Pan Am

between 1938 and 1941 to

add to its Clipper family. Each

plane could carry 74 passengers

by day and 36 as a sleeper,

in addition to the 11 crew

members (of which two were

cabin attendants). Nine of the

planes were named: Honolulu Clipper, California Clipper, Yankee Clipper,

Atlantic Clipper, Dixie Clipper, American Clipper, Pacific Clipper, Anzac

Clipper and Cape Town Clipper. The remaining three were transferred

from Pan Am to BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation) and were

given the names Bristol, Berwick and Bangor. In the course of World War

II, all nine Pan Am Clippers were requisitioned for US military use, five for

the Navy and four for the Air Force.

Boeing B-314 ‘Clipper’

Newfoundland was inaugurated. In

1939, the New York (Port Washington)

to Southampton ﬂight was launched

to compete with Imperial Airways.

In the same year, flights from New

York to Marseille, along with those

from New York to Lisbon, did much

to consolidate the name of Pan Am on

intercontinental routes.

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Pan Am and DC-3:

A short love story

In the years before World War II, Pan Am

became known as the model of efﬁciency

and professionalism. In a rapidly changing

market, it invested a lot of resources in

increasing the routes it covered and on

the consolidation of their image.

The uniform of the Pan Am pilots,

inspired by that of the staff of the

Merchant Marine, soon became a

distinctive feature. The fact that the

company did not operate on domestic

routes within the US inﬂuenced technical

choices regarding the kind of equipment

used and the training of staff. Unlike the

other major US companies, in the early

1940s, Pan Am’s fleet consisted of only

two DC-2s, six DC-3s and one Panagra

DC-3. By comparison, Eastern Airlines

had nine DC-3s, American Airlines had

13 DC-2s and 44 DC-3s, TWA had 14

and United Airlines had 30. It was only

after the war that Pan Am bought the

twin-engine Douglas™ on a large scale.

Approximately 90 planes were acquired

from post-war surplus, which enabled

the company to catch up with the

competition, although in most cases, the

planes were assigned to subsidiaries all

over the world, as had happened before

the war with the DC-2s that Pan Am

This Pan Am DC-3,

registration NC33613, was

delivered by Douglas to

Pan Am in May 1941 and

subsequently transferred

to its subsidiary, Aviación

de Cubana. In May 1945,

Cubana inaugurated the

ﬁrst permanent connection

between Havana and Miami

with its own DC-3s. Despite

Pan Am purchasing military

surplus DC-3s after the end

of World War II, the number of

these aircraft in its ﬂeet was

limited, compared to those of

other major US carriers.

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Pan American – The company and the DC-3

The Lockheed Constellation

was one of the aircraft that

symbolised intercontinental

travel in the late 1940s and

the 1950s. Both in the L-749

version and as the L-049

(Super Constellation), it played

an important role in the Pan

Am ﬂeet. The L-749 Clipper

America ﬂight was inaugurated

on 17 June 1947, becoming

the ﬁrst round-the-world

service (Pan Am Flight 001).

It ﬂew from San Francisco to

New York via Honolulu, Hong

Kong, Bangkok, Delhi, Beirut,

Istanbul, Frankfurt and London.

The Pan Am Flight 002

followed, taking the same route

in reverse, from New York to

San Francisco. Pictured left

is the Lockheed L-049, serial

number N88832, the Clipper

Flora Temple, delivered to Pan

Am on 19 February 1946 and

later sold to the subsidiary

Panair do Brasil.

bought up from other companies. At a

time when the company was expanding

its fleet of twin-engined aircraft, the US

air transport industry was already making

the transition to four-engined planes.

From January 1950, Pan Am became Pan

American World Airways Inc. and began

its own transition. But the company was

no stranger to technological advances.

In 1940, Pan Am had commissioned the

ﬁrst commercial aircraft with a pressurised

cabin (the Boeing B-307 Stratoliner) and,

in 1947, sent the first plane around the

world, the L-749 Constellation Clipper

America, which travelled from San

Francisco to New York the long way round

until 1950.

In January 1946, a Pan Am DC-3 could

ﬂy between Miami and Buenos Aires in 71

hours and 15 minutes. The following year,

a DC-4 could fly between New York’s

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From its outset, Pan Am encompassed a

large network of subsidiaries, operating in

many countries around the world. These acted

as links between the parent company and the

various local routes, in addition to operating

directly on some international connections.

In 1958, these subsidiaries included:

Mexico Airways

Mexican Airline Company

National Airline of Colombia

Venezuelan Airways (Avesa)

Afghan Airlines (Ariana)

Panamanian Aviation Company (Copa)

Costa Rica Airlines (Lacs)

Nicaragua Airlines (Lanica)

Bolivian Airlines

Panair do Brasil

Honduras Airways (Sahsa)

Until 1949, these subsidiaries also included

the China National Aviation Corporation

(CNAC), formed as a joint venture with the

Chinese government, who controlled 55%

of the capital. After the establishment of the

Republic of China in 1949, the Civil Aviation

Administration of China continued to be

a subsidiary.

Pan Am’s subsidiaries

An advertising sticker of

Compañía Mexicana de

Aviación S.A., one of the

many afﬁliates of Pan

Am in South America,

showing a DC-3 in the

background. Many twin-

engine Douglas planes

saw service – under

different liveries – with

subsidiaries of Pan Am,

often shifting from one

company to another

in a tangle of different

registrations.

Idlewild (since renamed

John F. Kennedy

International Airport) and

Buenos Aires in 38 hours.

The introduction of the DC-

7B, in 1958, brought travel times

down to 25 hours and 20 minutes (22

hours and 45 minutes if connecting via

Panama and Lima).

However, for Pan Am and its many

subsidiaries, the era of the DC-3 was

ending. In the 1950s, the DC-3’s place

in the Caribbean and

South America was

taken by the Convair

240, while the Curtiss

C-46 was widely used for

cargo. Despite increasingly

active lobbying, Pan Am was now

being challenged by a growing number

of competitors, and the twin-engine

Douglas was threatened with becoming

an anachronism as aviation entered

the jet age.

The Douglas DC-7B Clipper Jupiter Rex (which inherited the name of an earlier L-049) was acquired in 1950

with the assets of American Overseas Airlines and later resold to the British company BOAC. Produced

between 1953 and 1958, the DC-7 was the last passenger aircraft with piston engines made by Douglas

in Santa Monica before the transition to jet engines. The plane shown here (serial number N777PA) was

acquired by Pan Am on 25 May 1955, and sold by the Empire Aircraft Company on 21 September 1964.

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Assembly Guide

Finishing your model

Take the wings of the aeroplane. Fill and sandpaper any defects between the upper and lower

cladding pieces of the leading edges.

Mask the wings, leaving the leading edges exposed as shown in the photographs.

Paint the leading edges dark grey, the same colour that was used to paint the upper surface of

the nose and the upper leading edge of the tail. Leave to dry.

Take pieces S95G and S95D and ﬁt them to complete the left and right wing tips respectively.

Use PVA glue to ﬁx these pieces.

1 2

3 4

Finishing your model

S95G

N.B. Some elements supplied with each pack, in particular the sheets of

laser-cut plywood parts, may not look exactly the same to those in the

step-by-step photographs. But, of course, the individual assembly pieces

included within the laser-cut plywood parts will have exactly the same

shapes, sizes and descriptions as those shown here.

See the back cover for a checklist of your parts for this pack.

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Assembly Guide

Take pieces C73G and C73D and complete the front lights of

the left and right wings respectively as shown. Use white glue

to attach these pieces.

Continue attaching the strip around the inner edge of the wing,

forming it to ﬁt by hand.

Cut a strip 218 x 3mm from the sheet of aluminium for the

cladding. Trim it to ﬁt, then glue it to the edge of the inner

surface of the left wing, as shown in this step and subsequent

ones, making sure that it projects 1mm beyond rib A13.

Continue gluing the strip along its entire length. Repeat the

operation on the right wing with another strip of the same size.

Here is the aluminium strip in place on the inner edge of

the wing. Once the strip is positioned correctly, apply a little

cyanoacrylate glue to the underside of it.

Take pieces C12 and C15 supplied with Packs 5 and 2.

Apply a thin coat of primer and paint the outer sides chrome,

as you did the other parts of the fuselage. Leave to dry.

65 7

1098

C73D

A13

C12 C15

218mm

3mm

1mm

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Assembly Guide

Finishing your model

Mask the outer side of the doors. Apply a thin coat of primer

and paint the inner sides aluminium, preferably using an

airbrush. Leave to dry.

In the same way, mount the access door to the passenger

cabin (see Pack 5).

Using the paper templates supplied with Pack 2 and this

pack, attach the labels to the inner side of the access

doors of the aircraft as shown in the photograph. Use

PVA to attach the labels, and leave to dry.

Now ﬁt the left wing. If you are putting lights in your model,

complete the electrical connections, making sure the wires join

as shown, red to red, black to black, and carefully follow steps

16, 53, 55 and 56. Otherwise ignore these steps.

Mount the access door to the crew cabin (see Pack 2).

Insert the electrical connectors into the central section of the

wing and connect the wooden pegs.

1211 13

161514

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Assembly Guide

1817 19

222120

Finally, mount the left wing. You can apply glue to the joints,

or you can leave them as they are so that the wings will be

removable. Do not apply any glue at the moment. Repeat the

operation to mount the right wing.

Glue the two pieces completed in the previous step to the

outer sides of both engine fairings, as illustrated.

Take pieces SD57 and SD58 supplied with this issue. Paint

the second propeller and its cone, following the instructions

in the Assembly Guide of Pack 1.

If you have ﬁtted both nuts on each of the propeller screws,

remove the second nut. Mount one of the propellers as

illustrated, with the ﬂat part of the central hub facing forward.

Take pieces C60, the engine exhausts. Remove

any burrs, apply primer and paint the pieces brown,

preferably using an airbrush. When the paint is dry,

apply black paint to the insides.

Fit the second nut. Tighten it slightly and check that the

propeller rotates freely. Secure the second nut with a drop of

cyanoacrylate glue.

SD57

SD58

C60

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Assembly Guide

Finishing your model

2523

Complete the propeller by ﬁtting the cone to the centre.

Repeat the operation to complete the second propeller. Both propellers are now mounted and can rotate.

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Assembly Guide

Take piece C56. Remove any burrs, apply primer and paint it

chrome, as with other parts of the fuselage. Leave to dry, then

paint the inside of the piece black. Mount it as shown in the

photograph above.

Also adjust its width, so that it ﬁts perfectly.

Take piece C63, which is the ceiling of the passenger cabin.

Position the stringers as shown. Remember that you must ﬁle

the notches, if necessary, to make sure that the outer edges

of the stringers are ﬂush with the piece.

The photograph shows the ceiling piece in position – sandpaper the part until it ﬁts the opening perfectly. Remember that aluminium

cladding will be applied, which must be ﬂush with the cladding of the surrounding pieces.

With sandpaper, prepare the cabin ceiling so that it ﬁts

perfectly into the empty space in the upper part of the

fuselage. Adjust the piece for length.

2726 28

3029

C56

C63

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Assembly Guide

Finishing your model

Cut a piece of aluminium cladding 218 x 43mm for the ceiling

and prepare it with riveting patterns, then glue it in place.

Remove excess cladding projecting beyond the edge of the

ceiling with a craft knife, and sandpaper.

Take piece SD56. Smooth off any burrs, apply primer and

leave to dry. Paint it aluminium, preferably with an airbrush,

and when dry, ﬁx it to the lower part of the assembly prepared

in Pack 2, as shown.

Apply the primer to the underside and along the edges

of the piece prepared in the previous stage, as shown, and

leave to dry. Paint the edges of the piece green and the

underside beige.

Take the photo-etched sheet of the aircraft’s antennae,

provided with this pack. The pieces, except for S20, come in

pairs and are stuck together for added strength.

When the paint has dried, ﬁt the ceiling in position. Do not

glue it. The removable ceiling will enable you to see all the

details of the interior of your model DC-3.

Remove piece S20 from the sheet. Remove the projections

with a ﬁle and sandpaper, then, using ﬂat tweezers, bend

the piece very carefully to give it its ﬁnal shape, shown in the

photograph on the right.

3231 33

363534

SD56

SD56 S20

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Assembly Guide

Remove the remaining antennae from the photo-etched sheet.

Having separated them, smooth them, bend them and glue

them together to increase their thickness.

Mount antenna S23 on the underside of the centre of the

wings, as shown in the photograph. Please note: do not ﬁt

this antenna if the aircraft is going to be placed on the display

stand available for this model.

To mount the antennae, use the tip of a craft knife to make a

small hole at the appropriate point in the fuselage (see next

steps), and secure the metal pieces with a small amount of

cyanoacrylate glue.

Mount antennae S20, S24 and S25 on the upper part of the crew’s cabin (from Pack 2), as shown in the photograph.

Mount the antenna formed by pieces S21-S22 to the lower

part of the pilot’s cabin, just behind the third row of rivets.

3837 39

4140

S21

S25

S24

S23

S25S24S20

S22

S21-S22

30 mm

8mm

5mm

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Assembly Guide

Finishing your model

Take the pieces shown above to complete the tail of the aircraft. Apply chrome paint to all the pieces, following the method described

and previously used for the fuselage. Remember to respect the drying times of the individual painting stages, and handle all the

painted pieces with great care.

Take the tail of the aircraft, which you assembled earlier. Attach

piece C54 to complete the rudder, as illustrated.

In the same way, mount piece C55 to complete the upper part

of the ﬁn.

42 43

C55

C44 C46

C47 C45

C54 C48 C49 C54

C55

C57D

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Assembly Guide

Take piece C45 of the elevator. From the 0.8mm diameter

brass rod supplied with this pack, cut a piece that will ﬁt into

the groove on the elevator, as shown in the photograph.

Carefully cut, mark, ﬁt and glue cladding piece C44

onto piece C45.

Take the rod from the previous step and slide it through the

hinge in the tail assembly.

Complete the assembly of the left side of the tail with piece

C48 (see photograph).

From the underside, mount piece C45 as shown above.

Repeat Steps 45 to 49 symmetrically, to complete the right

side of the tail.

4645 47

504948

C45

C44 C48

C46 C47

C49

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Deagostini Douglas DC3 User guide

Deagostini Douglas DC3 User guide

Deagostini Douglas DC3 User guide

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