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The 'DC-4' is a four-engined airliner developed by the Douglas Aircraft Company. It served during the Second World War in a military role, and after the war for civilian airlines.

Contents

Development

Production

Derivatives

Variants

Specifications (DC-4-1009)

References

External links

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Development

The designation DC-4 was used by Douglas Aircraft Company when developing the DC-4E as a large, four-engined type to complement its very successful DC-3, already in widespread operation. The DC-4 was intended to fulfil United Airlines' requirement for a long-range passenger airliner. The DC-4E (E stands for experimental) emerged as a 52-passenger airliner with a fuselage of unusually wide cross-section for its day and a triple fin tail unit, similar to that later used by Lockheed on its Constellation.
The DC-4E first flew on June 7, 1938, piloted by Benny Howard and was used by United Air Lines for test flights. The type proved to be ahead of its time: It was complicated to maintain and uneconomical to operate. The sponsoring airlines, Eastern and United, decided to ask instead for a smaller and simpler derivative but before the definitive DC-4 could enter service the outbreak of the Second World War meant production was channeled to the United States Army Air Forces and the type given the military designation 'C-54 Skymaster'. Additional versions used by the US Navy were designated 'R5D'. The first aircraft, a C-54, flew from Clover Field in Santa Monica, California on February 14, 1942.

Production

The DC-4 had a notable innovation in that its nose-wheel landing gear allowed it to introduce a fuselage of constant cross-section. This lent itself to easy stretching into the later 'DC-6' and 'DC-7'. 1,163 C-54/R5Ds were built for the United States military services between 1942 and January 1946. Douglas continued to develop the type during the war in preparation for a return to airline services when peace returned. However, the type's sales prospects were hit by the offloading of 500 wartime C-54s and R5Ds onto the civil market. DC-4's were a favorite of "start up" airlines (aka-non-scheduled or supplemental carriers) such as Great Lakes Airlines, North American Airlines, Universal Airlines, Transocean Airlines, etc. In the 1950s, Transocean Airlines (Oakland, California) was the largest operator of the DC-4.
Douglas produced just 79 new-build DC-4s before production ceased on August 9, 1947. Pressurization was available as an option, but all civilian DC-4s (and C-54s) were built unpressurised.

Derivatives

'DC4M North Star/Argonaut'. 71 DC-4s were built by Canadair under the designations 'North Star', 'DC-4M', 'C-4', and 'C-5'. With the exception of the single C-5, these were all powered by Rolls-Royce Merlin engines and 51 of them were pressurized. The Royal Canadian Air Force, Trans-Canada Air Lines, Canadian Pacific Air Lines and BOAC operated these aircraft, the latter under the type name "Argonaut".
Starting in 1959, 20 DC-4s found new life as ATL-98 Carvairs. The Carvair was designed to carry 22 passengers and 5 automobiles. This was accomplished by extending the fuselage, moving the cockpit above the fuselage, adding a side-opening nose, and enlarging the vertical stabilizer to offset the larger forward fuselage. These planes served as flying ferries well into the seventies, and three are still airworthy as of January 2007 - one each in Alaska, Texas and South Africa.
The DC-4/C-54 proved a popular and reliable type and several remain in service today, particularly in the USA, where it proved popular as a charter/freight plane. An example is Brooks Fuel of Fairbanks, Alaska, with several DC-4/C-54s still operational in 2007 on cargo/tanker flights to remote airstrips. The DC-4 is still in operation in the Canadian North with Buffalo Airways.

Variants

★ 'DC-4-1009' Postwar passenger model. This civil model could carry up to 86 passengers.

★ 'DC-4-1037' Postwar freight model.

Specifications (DC-4-1009)

References

★ Francillon, René (1979). ''McDonnell Douglas Aircraft Since 1920: Volume I.'' London: Putnam. ISBN 0-87021-428-4

★ Yenne, Bill (1985). ''McDonnell Douglas: A Tale of Two Giants.'' Greenwich, CT: Bison Books. ISBN 0-517-44287-6

★ Pearcy, Arthur (1995). ''Douglas Propliners: DC-1 - DC-7.'' Shrewsbury: Airlife Publishing. ISBN 1-85310-261-X

External links

★ Boeing McDonnell Douglas page on DC-4

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