Exclusive Interview with DC-3 Pilot Eric Zipkin

By Emily Patrick

   32 years ago, a 19-year-old kid from Connecticut landed his small airplane at Greenville Municipal Airport in the North Maine Woods. It was just after ice-out. The airport was deserted, the gas pumps locked up. Still, out of all the remote places the young pilot could have landed, he must have picked the right one. Before long, an older gentleman appeared and offered the young man a ride into town. He also asked if the younger gentleman would like to see his son’s airplane.

   That man was Dick Folsom. The young pilot was Eric Zipkin. The aircraft was Greenville’s own, and the world’s only, DC-3 on floats. Of course, Eric had no way of knowing he and the DC-3 would meet again, many years later, and under very different circumstances. Still, as fate would have it, Eric and I met in the Terminal Building of that same airport on September 23^rd, 2024 only hours after Zipkin successfully landed the DC-3 with one engine due to a fuel system issue. Just over a week before, he got the DC-3 up into the sky on floats for the first time in over 20 years.

   He enjoyed a breathtaking day of flying with Rodney Folsom and others on board that bright September day. For a singular day, locals’ eyes were all turned upwards, the DC-3 aweing all who witnessed its roaring engine and sheer size. The craft landed on and took off from Moosehead Lake as a young Max Folsom envisioned when he dusted off the old WWII veteran and saw potential and promise where others saw pitfalls. The historic flight united and excited my hometown in a way I have never seen, and caused quite a stir in the aviation community. I just had to get the story behind this mysterious pilot from Connecticut.

   After meeting Dick Folsom and the DC-3 for the first time all those years ago, Eric went on to become an accomplished pilot. Currently, he owns an air charter company in Connecticut that operates about 30 airplanes. That being said, Eric’s first flying job was teaching people to fly seaplanes. The love of floats never left him, though he later found a new passion.

   Eric’s father was a WWII veteran, and as such, Eric has always had a keen interest in history. He recalls he started flying “warbirds” through a friend, starting with the Beech 18 and then T6. He started flying DC-3s in 2010 and quickly moved up in the DC-3/C-47 community, even leading a group of the old warbirds to Europe for the 70^th, 75^th and 80^th anniversary of the invasion of Normandy. Eric says he’s no stranger to “dragging DC-3’s out of the weeds.” The first DC-3 he flew hadn’t moved in 10 years.

   Eric’s friend Craig, who’s been helping Folsom work on the DC-3, knew about Eric’s experience with DC-3’s and C-47’sl and also that Eric had floatplane experience. That, combined with the fact he lives relatively close to Maine, and he took a tour of Folsom’s DC-3 with Dick all those years ago, made him a perfect and poetic choice to pilot the old girl’s first flights in well over a decade. To put the cherry on top, Eric says he’s “not going to be scared away by… small mechanical challenges.” He’s just “really honored to be part of it.”

   Before the DC-3’s wheels lifted off the runway September 14^th, there was a lot to consider.

The craft was sitting for the better part of 18 years, which can cause things to “clog up… stiffen up, seals blow…” Even with all the meticulous work Rodney and others have done to prepare her for flight, Eric says there are some problems you just can’t foresee until you actually go out and fly the airplane.

   The other fact to consider is, even with Eric’s impressive resume flying oversized war birds and floatplanes, he had never flown a DC-3 with floats because, he says with a wry grin, “There’s only one, right?” The plane’s sheer size makes things more difficult, even pre-flight prep. As Eric points out, you have to climb three flights of stairs (or rungs) just to turn on and test the fuel boost pumps.

   Taking all this into consideration, the plan on September 14^th was to take things one step at a time. The pre-flight process took several hours. The crew started with running the engines at high power and low power. Next, they took they plane out for some taxiing and did two high-speed taxis before they felt comfortable enough to take off. The 24,000-pound craft was off the runway in only about 2,000 feet. The first flight, they didn’t move the landing gear.

   After a successful landing back on the runway, they finally worked their way up to bringing the landing gear up into the floats during the second flight, allowing the world’s largest floatplane to touch down on Moosehead Lake for the first time in over 20 years. It was an incredibly affecting moment for all who witnessed it.

   Overall, the first flights on the 14^th were “quite successful,” according to Eric. “Everything went well,” he says, though he has enough experience with these old planes to know they weren’t totally out of the weeds yet. With even the most meticulously maintained crafts, things can go wrong. “With an airplane that’s already 80 years old that’s been sitting for 18 years… sometimes you find some stuff waking up the airplane.”

   Rodney Folsom, who is known for giving away very little, “…Was really beaming,” according to Eric. He said there were times they were just laughing about something and it was “very clear” what this meant to Folsom. Eric says even now, he’s “just starting to understand how personal this is.”

   For the Folsoms, of course, but also for our little town.

   Another day of flying was scheduled for September 23^rd. Being at the airport on both days, the 14^th and the 23^rd, I can say there was a very different feel in the air on the second flying day. The 14^th was bright and sunny and the airport was buzzing with a lively crowd of onlookers. On the 23^rd, a chill hung in the air. The overcast sky looked down forebodingly onto a near-deserted airfield.

   Still, after a quick takeoff, everyone was relieved and the small crowd there to witness it began to disperse, thinking another long day of flying was ahead for the DC-3’s crew. I had just come to a stop at the red octagon on the end of the airport road when my fiancé called and said the starboard engine was out and the giant was headed back to the airport quickly, flying low. I whipped my vehicle around just in time to see her touch down on the runway with a lump in my throat.

   As the craft taxied and came to a stop, everyone began to sense something wasn’t quite right. In minutes, the door flew open, a ladder was dropped, and Rodney Folsom came out of the airplane with a big smile on his face, hopped down onto one of the floats and said, “You guys didn’t even notice we came in with one engine?”

   Eric explained later that day that during the flight, it quickly became apparent there was an issue with the fuel system. They were consuming fuel more quickly in the right engine, so Eric made the call to shut down the starboard motor and land the plane, more as a precaution than anything else. He explained it’s possible to fly the plane with one engine, but he didn’t want to risk any damage to the airplane by continuing to run it with an apparent clog in the fuel system. He says the landing was “really more of a precaution.”

   During the course of our conversation, it was apparent Eric’s fascination with the DC-3, but not why he was so enamored. When I finally asked, he gave a poetic answer that took me aback. He said, “[The DC-3 is] really the story of the 20^th century in many ways… Just like everyone else in the country, it was drafted… A civilian talent that was drafted to serve the war effort. And like so many people in the country, [it] put on a uniform and went out an served… And then came home.”

   As we all know, “coming home” is never the end of the story. One can’t wrap up such an experience with a neat little bow. Veterans, and even big old airplanes, are tasked with the daunting challenge of figuring out what’s next. This parallel only adds to the charm of the Folsom’s DC-3, who was given a new life by a good ol’ boy from Greenville, Maine, and continues to captivate onlookers to this day.

   For the foreseeable future, Eric is trying to find a relatively nearby hangar to store the old girl in for the winter to keep her safe and cozy. The hope is that, in the coming months and years, they will get the craft to a point they “will be able to keep the airplane flying regularly,” and Rodney, Craig and others can get some experience piloting her. Eric says, “It takes a village to fly an airplane like this.”

   Thankfully, after serving in and surviving the Second World War, readjusting to civilian life, and sitting in disrepair for many years before being dusted off and lovingly restored by Dick & Max Folsom and others, this improbable aircraft could have ended up anywhere in the world, but chose our little gem of a hometown as her own.

*Photos courtesy Heidi St Jean and Tom Rogers