I flew military-surplus C-47's (DC-3's) in Alaska in the 1980's. Civilian manuals tell you how to fly with passengers for airline service. I needed to know what the airplane would actually do when flying into and out of short runways, beaches, and gravel bars. I used this military C-47 manual, which had the information that I needed for my job.
There are some interesting pages. The take-off performance with 4 1,000 lb. thrust JATO bottles is impressive, but I never got to experience that. The airplane will take off and land in a reasonably short distance. The shortest runway I used was 1,650 ft. long. The shortest with a full load was 2,200 ft. long.
The highest civilian gross weight is 26,900 pounds.
My avatar is the airplane I flew the most, a C-47B. It was picking up Sockeye Salmon on a beach in Bristol Bay. It has since been converted to turboprop engines and is currently based in Germany, supporting Arctic research. It was built in 1944.
