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Airliners Since 1946 By Kenneth Munson Macmillan Color Series w/ Dust Jacket
The Pocket Encyclopedia Of World Aircraft In Color
Airliners since 1946
Macmillan Color Series
By Kenneth Munson
Hardbound with dustjacket 172 pages
REPRINT 1972
The world's airliners have always. made news, whether for setting new inter national route records, for the comings and goings of V.I.P.s, or more recently as hi-jack victims or for the desirability-and cost-of supersonic travel. For the background to the aircraft that make this news this volume is a useful and an attractive reference.
The 78 airliners illustrated in this volume are shown in colour in side elevation, plan view from above and plan view from below, combining the maximum visual appeal with essential details of construction, national and international airline markings. The accompanying text describes each aeroplane's development and commercial career.
This volume presents the largest number and most accurate illustrations of post-war airliners yet prepared in colour at this price range combined with a text that is both topical and authoritative.
KENNETH M U N SO N, who has specialized for many years in the study of military aircraft, is the author of many aviation books. The principal artist, JOHN WOOD, who works with the British Interplanetary Society, has illustrated many of the standard works on aircraft.
PREFACE
TO THE FIRST REVISED EDITION
In the four and a half years which have elapsed since the original edition of this volume appeared, the commercial air transport scene has reflected a number of major changes. Among these are the virtual extinction of the piston-engined airliner from the fleets of the major operators; the entry into service of the Boeing 747, the first of the new generation of 'jumbo' jets; the marked rise in the fortunes of 'third-level' or commuter airline operators; and, perhaps most important of all, the sociological challenge posed by the supersonic passenger transport, opposition to which caused the cancellation of the United States' SST programme early in 1971. Meanwhile, the sales of subsonic jet airliners continue to rise, albeit less quickly, and during the next few years the new generation of wide-bodied 'airbus' transports will begin to enter service.
In this first revised edition, nine new aircraft appear for the first time, nearly a dozen other colour plates have been revised or updated, and the text also has been completely updated throughout.
No publication of this kind can ever be compiled without assistance and encouragement from a wide variety of sources, and I owe no small debt of gratitude to the many aircraft manufacturers, airline and business operators who supplied valuable reference material. Among a host of individual helpers, particular mention must be given to Messrs Norman Rivett and Brian Service, whose extensive collections of colour slides were an invaluable aid. My thanks for their assistance must also go to Messrs James Halley, Michael Hooks and John Wickenden of Air-Britain, to Maurice Allward, Mario Roberto Vaz Carneiro, 011e Hagblom of SAS, Stephen Peltz, Profile Publications Ltd and John W. R. Taylor.
October 1971
INTRODUCTION
THE AIR transport scene after the end of World War 2 was a motley one indeed. Most of the available aircraft plant in Europe had been turning out warplanes at the direction of the Axis dictators; Britain and Russia, too, had concentrated their efforts on mass production of the more militant types. Thus, only the United States had been able to maintain a continuity of transport aircraft production since the pre-war era. With her massive resources she had been able to sustain, for four years, the output of enough aircraft to meet virtually the entire transportation needs of all the major Allied powers: a fact which gave her a marked advantage over the other aircraft-producing nations at the war's end. With the tremendous run-down of military forces that immediately followed, many thousands of war-surplus transports became readily available for sale to airline operators both inside and outside the United States. These aeroplanes had already proved their capabilities under operational conditions far more arduous than any they would meet in peacetime, and so could be put straight into service once their interiors had been `civilianised'. Furthermore, although many of them had not been developed with operating economics uppermost in mind, their availability provided a valuable breathing space while types with better commercial attributes were designed and tested.
Not all of the aircraft used by airlines during the mid-194os started their lives as pure transports, however. The mainstay of the French internal and international networks, for instance, was for several years the veteran Junkers Ju 52/3m, designed nearly a decade and a half earlier as a Luftwaffe bomber and only diverted to transport duties after its shortcomings as a bomber had been revealed during the Spanish civil war. Bombers of more recent design, too, were obvious targets for stop-gap conversion to passenger- and freight-carrying duties, because of their size and their ability to fly long distances. The US Flying Fortress and Liberator, and Britain's Halifax and Lancaster, all underwent
conversion in this way. Their comparatively modest payloads
made them costly to operate, and from an economic viewpoint it_
was as well that they were only short-term equipment for the larger airlines; but their contribution to the Berlin airlift a year or two later was beyond price. One bomber development that deserves separate mention is the Boeing Stratocruiser, for this descendant of the B-29 Superfortress can justly be regarded as a true airliner in its own right, and its interior appointments for the comfort and safety of its passengers in flight set new standards that were not matched by any other type for several years.
Meanwhile, the latter half of the 194os saw the gradual emergence of new airliner designs, or developments of older ones, that had been growing on the drawing boards since the middle years of the war. In Britain these were geared chiefly to the recommendations of the Brabazon Committee, and the aeroplanes that eventually resulted from the requirements laid down by this committee met with widely differing degrees of success. The Dove and Viscount, for example, subsequently proved to be first-class money-spinners; rather less fortune attended the Ambassador and the Marathon, while the giant Brabazon suffered the penalty of being ahead of its time and the ignominy of being reduced to scrap after only a few hundred hours in the air.
For many years the four-engined airliner market was largely taken care of by the progressively developed Douglas DC-4/6/7 series and the Lockheed Constellation/Super Constellation range, both originated before and developed during the war. In the realm of the short/medium-range twin-engined airliner, however, despite the numerical preponderance of war-surplus C-46's and C-47's, several new designs began to emerge during the late 194os and early 195os. The principal British contender in this field was the Vickers Viking, a tubby but efficient and hardworking design that was a familiar sight on the European networks until the middle 195os. The more elegant Ambassador also sustained the popularity which attended its introduction by BEA in 1952, and its built-in passenger appeal was surpassed only by the Viscount among post-war British propeller-driven airliners. In retrospect it may be considered a great pity that only about a score of them were built. The fact that fifteen were still in active airline service at the end of 1966 speaks highly for the aeroplane's safety record, as well as for its popularity; and the two factors are not without connection. A similar observation might be made in regard to the Swedish Scandia, another medium twin also built only in modest numbers yet with a service record extending into the late 196os.
In the Soviet Union, the veteran designer Sergei Ilyushin made his contribution to the medium twin scene, first with the interim 11-12 design and later with the 11-14. The latter, in terms of length and breadth of service, of numbers built and of duties performed, well deserves to be called 'the Russian DC-3', and has been the staple equipment of many Communist bloc airlines, not to mention military squadrons, for much of the post-war period.
The US aviation industry produced two major types in this category, namely the Martin 2-0-2 and the Convair 240. The former, and its derivative the Martin 4-0-4, were built in comparatively modest numbers by US standards, and their employment was confined largely to the Americas. The Convair 24o, on the other hand, was ordered extensively by both military and civil customers and its development continued into the second half of the I96os, following the alliance of its well-proven airframe with the latest turboprop engines.
It was of course the Vickers Viscount which really brought home to the airlines the virtues of turboprop powerplants, and subsequently it became not only the first but - until overtaken in more recent times by the twin-Dart-powered Friendship - by far the most successful airliner since the war to be powered in this fashion. The Americans, curiously, did not pursue the application of the turboprop to passenger aircraft to the degree that might have been expected of a world leader in air transport design. While the Viscount was fast establishing new standards of speed, comfort and efficiency, the US aero-engine industry was still wringing the last ounce of energy out of the piston engine in the form of the Wright Turbo Compound that powered its DC-7s and Super Constellations. The only American airliner designed from the outset for propeller-turbine engines was the Electra, which entered service some years later than the Viscount and in less
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