I was lucky enough to fly the '3 hauling boxes and skydivers as well as spraying with them doing forrestry work.
You asked for a story, so here's my sportiest moment. As with most incedents, stupidity played a role but this airplane excells at taking care of the stupid.
We were approaching our destination one night at 7000 feet, IMC in moderate rain, OAT above freezing. The destination was reporting freezing rain. I briefed the approach with the strategy of staying in the warmer air as long as possible until we had to strart down. We would keep the speed up while maneuvering for the ILS and ask for short vectors. The F/O would monitor the ice accretion and try to keep ahead of it with the boots, squirt alcohol on the windshield occasionally, and hit the windshield wipers just before the "approaching minimums" call. That was a great plan for landing at the destination. The copilot was sharp but too inexperienced to say "you idiot, turn around and land at an airport on the warm side of the front!"
The approach went as planned and, needless to say, the clear icing was in the moderate to severe catagory. I doubted we would have the performance left to climb back to the warm air if we missed, so landing out of this one became pretty important.
We were still in the "clagg" at 400 feet above touchdown when the F/O opened the windshield wiper valve. You may recall that the windshield wipers are hydraulicaly accuated. Even though few things happen fast in a DC-3, several things happened suddenly at this point. A hydraulic line at the valve under the glareshield blew out of the connection. At 1500 P.S.I., the fluid instantly covered the back of the windshield, the entire instrument panel, and us from the neck down. The F/O instantly closed the wiper valve and that cut off the fluid leak, but we still had problems.
The fluid that covered the instrument panel foamed and obliterated the view of the instruments. We were approaching minimums and still IMC. If we did break out, ice/slush on the windshield caused the usual problem with visibility. Since we were already soaked with warm hydraulic fluid, I missed a golden opportunity to pee my pants right at that moment. No one would have known the difference.
The approach had been stable, so I just froze the yoke where it had been so as not to change the pitch attitude and left the throttle setting right where it was. I yanked the side window open but didn't move my head until the copilot called the approach lights in sight.
I stuck half of my head out of the side window and had a wonderful view of the runway threshold and touchdown zone. Due to the higher approach speed required by the ice load on the airplane and the poor braking action, we used about 4000 feet of the 5500 foot long runway to get stopped. Because the F/O had the smarts to close the wiper valve as soon as the line blew, we still had hydraulic fluid and consequently brake pressure available for the landing.
We were lucky for several reasons, among them that the glareshield had prevented the hydraulic fluid from spraying in our eyes. And the fact that the marvelous Douglas engineers designed the windshield so that you encountered a slight vacume and no air blast within 8 inches when sticking your head out of the side window in flight if the windshield view is obstructed.
Thats my story and I'm sticking to it. Come on folks, I know you have better Gooney Bird stories than this and I'd like to hear them.