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| u.s. airliners 1940-1949 | |
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The DC-4 is a four-engined airliner developed by the Douglas Aircraft Company . It served extensively during the Second World War in a military role, and after the war for civilian airlines. 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 forthcoming DC-3 design. It was intended to fulfill United Air Lines ' 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 , and was used by United Air Lines for test flights. But 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 channelled to the United States Army Air Forces and the type given the military designation C-54 . 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 DC-4s were built for the United States military services between 1942 and 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. Douglas built just 74 new-build aircraft before production ceased on August 9 , 1947 . Pressurization was available as an option, but all civilian DC-4s 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. The DC-4 proved a popular type and several remain in service today, particularly in the USA where it proved popular as charter/freight plane. Other versions
Specifications (DC-4-1009)
General characteristics
Performance
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