If an award of recognition could be given to an aircraft for longevity of service, without a doubt one of the more qualified candidates would be the Douglas DC-3 and its military equivalent the C-47. The DC-3 is without a doubt the aircraft that has given most boost to the development of civil airlines and, at the same time, it is the ‘flying lorry’, that has fought, and with success, in three wars – the Second World War, in Korea and in Vietnam, without counting the various military air forces with whom, even today, it is performing its duty. General Eisenhower was so impressed with the Dakota, that he named it as one of three machines that would win the war, the jeep, the tank and the Dakota .