How the DC 7 Nearly Saved Propeller Airliners

Video from the channel Flightscope Aviation about Douglas DC-7, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 13:09. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.

English-language documentary that presents the Douglas DC-7 as the most capable propeller airliner of its time and explains why it arrived at the worst possible moment, just before the jets.

In 1951 Douglas was comfortable with the DC-6B, but C. R. Smith, president of American Airlines, needed to connect New York and Los Angeles nonstop within the crew's eight-hour limit. He ordered 25 aircraft for about 40 million dollars. The prototype flew on 18 May 1953 from Santa Monica, and American launched service on 29 November; Delta followed on 1 April 1954 on the Chicago-Miami route. On 30 June 1956 a United DC-7 collided over the Grand Canyon with a TWA Super Constellation, killing 128 people. That accident drove the Federal Aviation Act of 1958 and the creation of the federal aviation agency.

The DC-7 kept the 117-foot 6-inch wingspan and carried four Wright R-3350 Turbo-Compound engines with three power-recovery turbines each. Its rear cylinders overheated and required constant maintenance. 105 DC-7s and 112 DC-7Bs were built; the latter carried optional tanks in the nacelles, and Pan Am used it across the Atlantic from June 1955. The DC-7C Seven Seas added wing inserts stretching span to 127 feet 6 inches, 3,400 hp per engine, and 5,635 miles of range. 121 were built, for customers such as BOAC, KLM, Northwest Orient, and SAS, which opened the polar route Copenhagen-Anchorage-Tokyo. In total 338 aircraft were produced for 18 airlines. The turboprop DC-7D never went beyond the study stage. The nose section of American's Flagship Vermont is preserved at the National Air and Space Museum.