Douglas DC-4 variant
Douglas DC-4 Aviation Traders ATL-98 Carvair
British car ferry: 21 DC-4s and C-54s rebuilt with a swing nose and raised cockpit, from 1959.
Image pending
- June 21, 1961
- First flight
- 21
- Units built
- 3,701 km
- Range
- 55
- Passengers
History
The DC-4 with a hump
From 1959, 21 DC-4s and C-54s found a second life as the Aviation Traders ATL-98 Carvair, a car ferry designed to carry 22 passengers and five automobiles. The conversion is one of the most radical ever applied to an airliner: the fuselage was extended, the cockpit moved above it, a side-opening nose added so cars could be loaded head-on, and the vertical stabiliser enlarged to offset the bulk of the new forward fuselage.
The unmistakable result served as a flying ferry well into the 1970s. As of March 2008 two were still airworthy, one each in Texas and South Africa.