Here are a couple of sites having some information about the little recognized Douglas DC-5/R3D.

www.geocities.com/lastdingo/aviation/dc-5.htm
www.daveswarbirds.com/usplanes/aircraft/dc-5.htm

Just returned from Daves site. I wasn't aware that there had been a DC5. It sure looks different. Not at all what you would expect a Douglas design to look like. While there, I looked up the Fairchild AT21 Gunner. There was one parked at the Troutdale airport where I worked in the mid 50s. There was also an airworthy Fairchild 45 parked there. Both aircraft had been built using molded plywood to skin the wings and fuselage. I always thought that type of construction looked vey sleek and was strong. Unfortunately it was also suceptable to deterioration from the weather.
Lee

Hi Lee,

When I was a little kid...I use to go down to Lindbergh Field here in San Diego and rummage around the junk yard next to Ryan Aircraft Co. and
in the yard there was a Gunner...just sitting there. It was in a deteriorating condition but there was still enough left of it to climb into the cockpit and let my imagination fly through the clouds as I sat in one of the pilots buck seats. Ah...those were the days.

Doug

After looking at a picture of the Fairchild 45,I believe I might be wrong to say it used molded plywood construction. It may have been gas pipe and rag. One of the advantages of age is that there aren't too many guys left to contradict me. But maybe someone is still out there who does remember. There are only two examples left flying. Their appearance reminds me of a single engine Bamboo Bomber.
Lee

A couple of KLM DC5's escaped the Japanese advance through Indonesia in WW2.

They were flown to Australia where they were impressed into RAAF service and crewed by Ansett flight crew.

Later they were also used for the US miltary in this country.

I am not to sure of their fate, but I imagine that by the end of hostilities they would have been pretty well clapped out and were probably scrapped.

Hi David,

I agree about the fate of those DC-5's...and I have pretty much come to terms that all of the 5's met the same fate. Earlier I stated I had thought one of the aircraft survived in a museum around Malaysia
but I believe I was thinking of another aircraft. I do however believe we must keep alive these rarely heard of aircraft including the Albatross, the Douglas DC-5, the Douglas DC-4E among others.

Doug

Doug,
I am not aware of any air museum in Malaysia or Singapore. They have some great museums there, but airplanes are not part of their national physci.

To my knowledge, no DC5's exist now.

David,

Thanks for setting me straight. I think the museum I was talking about is in Thailand. Several Japanese aircraft of the second world war era are housed there. They were part of the Thai Air Force during the war and following the conflict. I ran across some
Japanese footage yesterday shot during that era and there are scenes of Japanese and what appear to be Thai personnel examining the mechanical aspects of a Mitsubishi designed Zero-Fighter. For some reason I connected the DC-5 with the Imperial Japanese Army Air Corps. of the period...and I had thought I had remembered seeing the Douglas transport within the collection....but I am sure I am wrong...and that all of the DC-5's/R3D's are long gone.

Doug

Doug,
The Japanese had a licence(issued prior to WW2) to build the Douglas DC3.

The Japanese airforce used licence built DC3's during the war. I think the allied codename for them may have been "Tabby."

Several survived the war and were used in Asia (principally IndoChina) for many years.

Sorry to disappoint you Doug, but according to a very authorative article about the DC5, which appeared, I think, in Propliner magazine some years ago, all the DC5s bar one perished in the war or shortly after. I think it said that the Japanese flew some which they had captured from the Dutch.

One did outlive the rest, as, by nefarious means, it ended up in the Israeli-Arab war of 1947-8, used, amongst other unorthodox tasks, as a "kick em out the door" bomber. It survived the war and was used as an instructional airframe until 1955, when it disappeared, presumably scrapped-a tragedy.