Douglas C-47 – Betsy’s Biscuit Bomber – N47SJ | Gooney Bird Corporation

  • STATUS: Airworthy
  • LOCATION: Templeton, CA
  • OWNER: Gooney Bird Corporation
  • ROLE: Military Transport
  • BUILT: 1944
  • LENGTH: 63 ft 9 in 9.43 m
  • WINGSPAN:   987 ft 91.70 m
  • ENGINE:  2 × Pratt & Whitney R-1830-90C Twin Wasp 14-cylinder radial engines
  • MAXIMUM SPEED:   224 mph 360 km/h)
  • RANGE:  1,600 miles 2,575 km

Douglas C-47 Betsys Biscuit Bomber rolled off Douglas Aircraft’s production line in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma during the summer of 1944 and was allocated to the U.S. Army Air Force on September 4th, 1944. She served with the 9th Air Force in Europe, but was obviously too late to see service during D-Day. She did however take part in the Berlin Air Lift during 1948 whilst on loan to the Belgian Air Force where she obtained her nickname Betsy’s Biscuit Bomber.

C-47 Betsys Biscuit Bomber was returned to the  then new United States Air Force in 1952  before further loans to the French Air Force (1953-1967) and  Israeli Air Force 1967-199 where she was maintained in “War Readiness” state.

The aircraft was brought back to the USA in 1999 and given civilian registration N47SJ before being flown to Canada and stored for three years. In 2007 C-47 Betsys Biscuit Bomber was registered to Gooney Bird Corporation and flown from Canada to Paso Robles, CA where she has since received a restoration back to airworthy condition as probably the lowest total airframe time C-47 known to exist with under 10,000 hours. Never having received a civilian conversion, she is one of the most authentic original C-47s currently flying. She is currently owned by the Gooney Bird Group in Templeton, California. For more information visit www.betsysbiscuitbomber.com

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