Northwest Airlines Douglas DC-4

The Douglas DC-4 was primarily a wartime aircraft, built from 1942 to 1947.  The military variant, the C-54 Skymaster, was produced in large numbers, 1170 according to Wikipedia.  But only 63 of the passenger version DC-4 were built.

The caption on the back of this card reads, "America's great cities are served by these huge luxury liners of the "Northwest Passage".  Travel in comfort and safety at cruising speeds of over four miles per minute."

Well...four miles a minute is about 240 miles an hour...a little over a third the speed of a modern sub-sonic jet.  And I guess huge is relative.  Seating 86 passengers with a maximum take-off weight of 73,000 pounds was indeed pretty remarkable for the day.  In modern terms though, a 747-8 seats 467 in a three class configuration and has a maximum take-off weight of 987,000 pounds (!!).  Someday...I suppose this will seem small and slow.  When that will be, though, is anybody's guess!

Until next time...