A contest for you old-time freight dogs
Okay folks, here's a contest. Identify the freighter aircraft in the picture below and win a valuable prize!
If you provide the correct answer (airline and aircraft type), I will personally take you out for coffee and a doughnut at the famous Top Pot Doughnut shop just around the corner from our Seattle office. Of course you have to get yourself to Seattle, but hey... Top Pot doughnuts are really good. Scroll down below the picture for some clues
The computer industry has become one of the main drivers of air freight demand. When Dell or Apple comes up with a new portable memory gadget, millions of them have to be shipped from Malaysia or Taiwan to Europe, Japan, North America etc. They're tiny, valuable, and have to be rushed to market before the competitor gets his to market. So air freight, even though it's not cheap, is the perfect answer.
This photo shows the first such shipment. It was 54 years ago, back in 1956, when IBM used air freight to ship its first external hard drive. Yup, that's what is being moved. One hard drive, with 5 megabytes of storage. And it weighed only a little bit over one ton. (It was for IBM's recently-launched 305 RAMAC supercomputer - which was probably as big as a house.)
Tags: freighter
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Charles Michael Stewart on -
David,
I was only 8 years old at the time, living in Wichita, where Boeing was building B52s (so that's the only airplane I recognized at the time) but I'll give it a try. It's clear to see that it's Pan American World Airways, and I'll guess that it's a DC6.
Mike Stewart
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Permalink Reply by Jóhannes Einarsson on
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David
This looks like a PAN AM DC7A
Jóhannes Einarsson
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Permalink Reply by Edward R OMeara on
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David:
Of course it is a Pan Am freighter, and my guess is a DC4.
Ed O'Meara
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Permalink Reply by Marcie Belles on
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I second the Pan Am DC7 guess.
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Permalink Reply by JJ Hornblass on
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You're such an old-time freight dog, Marcie!
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Permalink Reply by Charles T. Cleaver, II on -
David, I believe it is a Douglas DC-6A operated by Pan American World Airways.
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Permalink Reply by Charles T. Cleaver, II on
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We are deep in esoterica here. No such thing as a DC-7A, on DC-7, DC-7B, and DC-7C. Douglas never built a purpose-built DC-7 freighter. Various pax aircraft were converted after the jets arrived and were informally called things like DC-7CF, -7BF, or 7F.
The date of the picture and Pan Am logo shows it to have been taken before either the DC-7B or -7C entered service. PAA would not have converted a new DC-6B but were operators of the DC-6A, a purpose built DAC aircraft that actually preceded the DC-6B in service.
OK, enough geekdom.
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Permalink Reply by Glaine A Russell on
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My best guess is a form other photo's I have seen it is probably a DC6 A or B.
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Permalink Reply by Alex Kwanten on -
Just an aside, but … For really hard-core fans of the prop-liners, you still have the chance to ride on one. This august the Historical Flight Foundation is offering rides on a restored 1958 Eastern Airlines DC-7 (id: 45345/928) next month in two locations. First on Aug. 7-8 in (YIP) Ypsilanti, Michigan at the “Thunder over Michigan” airshow, and then at Teterboro, New Jersey (TET) in conjunction with the Airliners International 2010 hobby show.
At $300 a ride for just one hour of flying time it isn’t cheap – but if you love classic props, there aren’t many opportunities like this.
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Permalink Reply by Martin Bleasdale on
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Enough already...
It's a DC-6A, which was OEM-built as a freighter only. Pan Am had five of them, delivered between 4/54 and 6/58. This one seems to have "Super 6 Clipper" above the Pan American World Airways titles, which fits.
Pan Am also had 45 DC-6Bs, all pax. I doubt very much that any were converted to A, while in Pan Am service.
[Some DC-6As were later "reverse-converted" to pax, as DC-6Cs, but not while with PanAm.]
It can't be a DC-4, as they didn't have upward-opening cargo doors, and the windows are squared. DC-4s had circular windows. And the PAWA titles on the DC-4s ended forward of the cargo door.
It can't be a DC-7F, as they were converted DC-7Bs, and Pan Am didn't convert any. It can't be a DC-7CF as they didn't enter service until 1959. Pan Am's first of 26 DC-7Cs (pax) was delivered in 4/56, the first of its 13 DC-7CFs in 1959. Again the PAWA titles ended forward of the cargo door. Interestingly, all the DC-7CFs were conversions, each converted from a C model approximately two years after entering pax service.
I don't like dounuts or even doughnuts, or rather they don't like me, so I'll take the money....
Cheers,
-Martin Bleasdale / freighterdata.
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Permalink Reply by David Harris on -
Okay, coffee and doughnuts for all! Or, almost all. As a couple of our resident a/c geeks have pointed out, Both DC-6s and DC-7s were configured as freighters, and Pan Am operated both types. But the photo was taken before Pan Am could have had a DC-7F, ergo...
And don't you love the split cargo door? The front section opens horizontally, while the aft section lifts vertically. Anybody know if there was some structural necessity for doing it this way, or if they just decided to keep the existing man-door?
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