" In the beginning ....", as the man wrote in the book, was the piston engine. Many people are under
the illusion that jets have always been the order of the day and most do not know what a Douglas DC-4 was.
Back in 1952, I started working with Seaboard & Western in Shannon. The queen of the fleet at that time was the DC-4.
It was crewed by a captain, copilot, reserve captain, navigator and radio operator; and three stewardesses when they were
operating Military Air Transport Service (MATS) passenger trips.
MATS required that one of the stewardesses be a registered nurse. Westbound MATS trips normally operated Frankfurt - Shannon -
Gander - Idlewild.
| Leg | Time (hr:min) |
|---|---|
| Frankfurt - Shannon | 4:00 |
| Shannon - Gander | 10:30 |
| Gander - Idlewild | 4:30 |
| Total Time | 19:00 |
There were occasions however when a DC-4, due to head winds, would be unable to operate non-stop from Shannon to Gander and would have to stop in Keflavik in Iceland. At that time, there was no alternate airport for Keflavik, so the requirement was to take an additional three hours of fuel sufficient to get back to Prestwick, Scotland.
Another route occasionally used was Frankfurt - Santa Maria (in the Azores) - Gander.
The passenger were normally fed on the ground at Shannon where they would also pick up 72 box lunches that were the main meal and the same number of snacks for the west-bound trip across the water. The only thing hot on the aircraft was the coffee.
The box lunches usually were chicken and at the time I often wondered when they were going to run out of chickens in Ireland. In addition to Seaboard, Transocean, Seven Seas, Slick, ONA, Flying Tigers, and a host of other non-scheds were hauling MATS passengers through Shannon. The passengers were fed on the ground at Gander and food would be loaded there for the leg to Idlewild.
The DC-4 was powered by four 1,450 horsepower Pratt and Whitney R-2000 engines, had eight gas tanks and a maximum fuel capacity of 3,600 U.S. gallons.
The empty weight on the DC-4 in passenger configuration varied from 43,000 to 45,000 lbs. Stripped for cargo operations, it would be 39,000 to 41,000 lbs, In 1952, the maximum takeoff weight was 71,500 lbs. In 1954, this was increased to 73,500 lbs. Maximum landing weight was 63,500 lbs.
The true airspeed was 181 knots, the fuel flow was 208 gallons/hr. in cargo configuration and 211 gallons/hr in pax configuration. (The additional three gallons/hr. was for the heaters when carrying passengers.) Reserve and alternate fuel was computed at 180 gallons/hr. They usually carried 72 soldiers, their wives, and screaming kids. The critical leg was Shannon - Gander, 1717 miles of water. The westbound wind component would on average be minus twenty knots which gave you a ground speed of 161 knots with a flight time of approximately 10:30.
A cargo flight plan worked out as
| Leg | Time (hr:min) | Fuel (gallons) |
|---|---|---|
| Shannon - Gander | 10:30 | 2,215 |
| Alternate airport | 1:00 | 180 |
| Reserve | 2:00 | 360 |
| Total | 13:30 | 2,755 |
2,755 gallons x 6 lbs./gallon = 16,530 lbs.
This was all manually calculated on an E6B computer.
Operating (empty) weight = 41,000 lbs + 16,530 lbs. fuel = 57,530 lbs.
Maximum takeoff weight = 73,500 lbs - 57,300 lbs = 15,970 lbs payload.
Many and varied were the charters which Seaboard performed. Carried from India, as well as the Philippines, were thousands of Rhesus monkeys for research that led to the Salk vaccine. 1,600 caged monkeys would be loaded on each aircraft. Horses, cattle, and all kinds of cargo were carried. In fact Seaboard was the first scheduled cargo across the North Atlantic.
The crews on those piston-engine aircraft were the trailblazers and turned airline travel into the sophisticated mode of transport which it is today. Their work should be honored and remembered.
