I Went to the Amazon to Fly in a 1942 Workhorse of Aviation

The Douglas DC-3 was mass-produced during World War II. Today, one of the few still remaining transports passengers in Colombia’s jungle.We were cruising at eight thousand feet, low enough to make out individual trees in the rainforest below, when a towering wall of midafternoon cumulus arose before us.There was no way around it — it was many miles wide — and no way over it because we were in an 84-year-old Douglas DC-3, arguably the most legendary plane ever mass-produced yet one without a pressurized cabin, which limited how high we could fly.As the plane and the storm closed in...