A year or so ago I was standing near the DC-3 and a gentleman comes up to me and asks if I was familiar with the coin under the DC-3?
Needless to say I had no idea of what he was referring to.
He went on to say when these type planes were manufactured by Donald Douglas his mechanics would rivet a dime under the fuselage
near the tail,in case " you bought the farm" (crashed) and survived you had a dime to call for help. He went on his way and as soon as he was out of sight I just has to look. Sure enough there was the dime riveted near the tail. (you have the picture of ours)
In October of that year I was visiting my son in Florida and there was an air show at the Stuart airport. The Flagship Detroit was there and I asked one of the AA people showing the aircraft if he had ever heard the story of the dime riveted to the aircraft. He had no knowledge of what I was talking about. I asked him if I could crawl under and take a look.. No dime there BUT in the exact spot where it would have been there was a piece of aluminum about 2 inches square riveted to the aircraft. To me it looked like someone removed it and patched the hole.
Several years ago I met the sons of Donald Douglas,Don and Jim. Had I known about the dime at the time I would have asked them and I bet they would have had the answer.
I have no idea if there is any truth to this but the dime is there on our DC-3.
Don Smith
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