The Floating Gooney Bird

The term Gooney Bird refers to a World War II C-47 or a C-53, military versions of the commercial passenger plane the Douglas DC-3. One of them, a C-53 converted back to a DC-3, is reputed as being the only one in the world on amphibious floats. Its home base is the Greenville Maine airport, not even a mile from Eden Hill Farm, namesake for this journal. The name Eden Hill Farm exists only in my head but this Gooney Bird on floats is for real.

I came across a short video on YouTube this evening about some guys flying to this year's Seaplane Fly-In in Greenville and it included a short section of this relic with newly painted floats landing at the Greenville airport:

MAINE | An Aviation Short Film

This prompted me to do a Google search, and I found this article from September 2024 documenting the first flight of this airplane in twenty years:

World’s Only DC-3 on Floats Returns to the Skies

It's so cool to see that this airplane is flying again!

There's even a book written about it:

The Glorious DC-3 on Floats: An Unwritten History of the World’s Largest Floatplane