Air Cargo Industry

In Part One, I discussed the history of the Airlines in the USA. Now we will get into some further details of pre-war developments of both the industry and technology before the war.

As previously mentioned, Pan American was dominant in trans-oceanic and international service with their use of the famous Clipper Flying Boats. However, their monopoly was being challenged by Howard Hughes and his TWA. He had teamed up with Lockheed Airplane Co to build the "Constellation", a four engined, long range, high speed airliner to compete against Pan Am (the movie "The Aviator" is accurate in depicting this effort).. In addition Boeing had developed a civil version of the B-17 Bomber called the Model 307 "Stratoliner" in its first bid in long range land plane development. And the first fully pressurized four engined airliner. Douglas, was still producing the immortal DC-3 in large numbers, and began testing a new DC-4, which was pressurized and featured a three-tailed design (like the Constellation). However the DC-4 prototype was plagued with being so large, that the airlines were rejecting it. In addition the three-tail design was causing serious instability problems.

It was pretty well established that any long distance, trans-continental or trans-oceanic transport, must have four engines, as a matter of reliability and safety. Such was the case in the piston engined Boeing/Martin/Sikorsky Clippers of Pan Am, as well as the new Lockheed/Douglas aircraft. This rule would prevail until the late 1980's, when the twin jet would prove, reliable, safe, and obviously more economical.

If you are into facts and figures. In 1927, the US Post Office had moved over 6 million pieces of mail, before the civilian takeover. By 1929, over 160,000 passengers had flown, in the US. By 1941 over 4 million passengers had flown, and as mentioned 90% by DC-3.

The onset of war, that as far as the USA was concerned began from the air and, would end from the air as well. The War Department took over control of the production of civil aircraft, for the effort. At first even the DC-3 was viewed with a skeptical view, as to its abilities. However it was the only transport being produced in large quantities. The DC-3 was however configued into military garb as the C-47/R4D and other names for the allied assignments.

True to form, the C-47 would move 5000% more freight than the previous year. And would highlight practically every operation of the allies during WWII. In fact, there are so many things that this one single aircraft type would do that, it deserves a special mention at a later date. The Douglas DC-4's design would be radically changed and be fitted with a single tail unit and unpressurized. This would become the C-54 "Skymaster". The Lockheed "Constellation" would be also configured into military specification (to the shagrin of Howard Hughes) and become the C-69. As the C-54 would be used as a general troop/freight transport, in which it was redesigned to do. The C-69 "Constellation" would be adopted for transport of persons such as Gen McArthur, who named his airplane "Bataan", and Gen Eisenhower ("Columbine") due to its level of comfort and speed and pressurized cabin.

Among those aircraft that would be in development prior to the war, as a replacement for the DC3 for the airlines, would enter service in olive drab was the Curtiss C-46 "Commando" which honored itself by assisting in the transporting of supplies over the "hump" in Burma supporting the now isolated "Flying Tigers" fighter squadron.

When hostilities ended, the worlds airlines (with the exception of the US) were in literal shambles. There began a rush, to reinitiate services. Since no new transports were available, surplus military aircraft were plentiful, but since the US Airlines had been forced to utilize their pre-war fleet, they also needed new aircraft. Of the aircraft available, the C-47 had been the "most produced" transport type, with over 10,000 built. Many of these were grabbed up and converted into DC-3A's and put into airline service. The few C-54s were in turn converted into civilian colors and sold to the airlines as DC4s. Although the production of military aircraft for the war effort ended, the C-54 would be converted into civilan DC-4's and the C-69 into L-049 "Constellations" to meet the high demand. The aircraft companies would begin to concentrate on producing airplanes solely for the airline market.

In the United Kingdom, the "Brabazon" Committee, would establish the course of the British Civil airliner production. They would establish the development of every airliner made in the UK, right up to and including the Concorde SST. Their initial efforts were converting the established great bombers such as the Avro Lancaster into civilian airliners. The Committee, had as an aim, to compete with the US airliner producers, who had up to this time dominated the worlds airliner markets.

The establishment and proof of the possibility of all cargo services was established with the Berlin Airlift in 1946. The blockade of West Berlin by the Russians after the war, isolated the people from recieving supplies. This being an attempt to literally starve the city into submission, and provide a opportunity for the Soviets to take over the city. The allies, just would not have it. Many pilots (now civilian) and aircraft were rushed into the largest airlift of material in history. Every type of transport aircraft would be utilized and would bring everything from coal, to gasoline, medicine, fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, blankets, wood, can goods, flour, etc to the people of West Berlin. These flights arrived at Tempelhof Airport at a rate of one arrival every five minutes at one point. Soon the Soviets, realized that their blocking or roads and railways just wasn't going to work, and called off the blockade. The success of the Airlift would establish new airlines designed to provide all cargo services throughout the world. Among them, Riddle, Slick and Flying Tigers, which was established by the former commander of the famous fighter squadron in China at the onset of the War against Japan.

In 1945, over 6 million passengers were flying on the US Airlines. The new peace would usher a new era in transporting people by air, although still costly compared to the rail services that were still thriving in the US. This begins the "Golden Age" of piston. The tremendous technological advances made from the demands of war, would be utilized into producing "State of the Art" piston powered airliners. These aircraft would provide speed, luxury and reliability, until another advance of technology learned from war would revolutionize air travel, namely the Jet Engine.

Part three will get into this Golden Age and the early efforts to make the Jet Airliners. This gets very interesting...