Douglas C-54D Skymaster
After the success of the DC-3, Douglas Aircraft began looking into a four-engined airliner with true transcontinental range—as successful as the DC-3 was, it still had to make an average of five stops between New York and Los Angeles. Douglas wanted an aircraft that would need at most one stop, if that. United Airlines was interested in such an aircraft, and Douglas built the DC-4E to United’s requirements: this was a 42-seat airliner with a triple-tail unit and a wide fuselage for passenger comfort.
While the DC-4E had promise, it was also technically complicated, and both United and the other launch customer, Eastern Airlines, rejected it after its first flight in June 1938. Douglas then designed a simpler, slightly smaller and more streamlined aircraft, with a single tail and longer nose. This new version, simply designated DC-4, met the airlines’ requirements, but before it could enter revenue service, the attack on Pearl Harbor brought the United States into the war, and the DC-4 production line was immediately converted to building aircraft for the US Army Air Force as the C-54 Skymaster.
While not as widespread, as produced, or as versatile as the C-47 Skytrain, the C-54 had longer range and could carry more passengers. Some were used as purely cargo aircraft, but most served as passenger transports: it was the only USAAF cargo aircraft that could fly nonstop over the Atlantic to England. 1170 were built during the war.
After the end of the war, Douglas built a further 72 DC-4s before switching to the larger and more advanced DC-6; it was unnecessary to build more, as the USAAF released half of the C-54 fleet as surplus. Like the C-47, these were rapidly bought by airlines, namely Pan American, who inaugurated transatlantic service in January 1946. Enough remained in the newly independent US Air Force to become the primary transport aircraft, alongside the C-47, for the balance of the 1940s and well into the 1950s.
The Skymaster’s defining moment came in 1948 when Josef Stalin, the dictator of the Soviet Union, had the city of West Berlin blockaded by land. Rather than back down, President Truman was determined to supply West Berlin from the air—something that had proven difficult for even the well-equipped Allies to do with much smaller military units in World War II, much less with a city of nearly a million people that needed a minimum of 500 tons of supplies a day. The C-47 could only haul about three tons apiece, but the C-54 could transport nearly ten tons.
Nearly every C-54 in USAF service, along with the similar R5Ds operated by the US Navy, were sent to Germany to supply Berlin, operating from June 1948 to April 1949. Specialized training for the mission was established at Great Falls AFB, Montana, where crews would experience similar weather to that experienced in Germany and would have plenty of open airspace to practice in—the air corridors of western Europe were far too crowded with transports for training. Once the course was completed, crews were sent to Rhein-Main airbase in Germany to begin Airlift duties, flying what crews called “the ladder” of three C-54 flights followed by a single C-47 flight to Berlin-Templehof airfield, with a turnaround time of less than half an hour on the ground, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in all weather. So important was the C-54 to the Airlift that the medal awarded for the mission consisted of a tiny gold Skymaster pin. When the Berlin Airlift ended, a thousand tons of supplies were being flown into Berlin, more than the city had received by land before the blockade began. The Berlin Airlift was the first success scored by the United States in the nascent Cold War, and bound the American aircrews tightly with a grateful German population, easing postwar tension.
Following the Berlin Airlift, the C-54 remained in service, though it was replaced in the transport role by the C-119 Flying Boxcar and the C-130 Hercules. C-54s were used extensively to fly personnel to the Korean War, and were still used both as executive transports and search-and-air rescue coordination aircraft during Vietnam. The last aircraft were withdrawn in 1974. 27 other air forces also used C-54s at one time or another. Today, about 40 C-54s are left, with half that number flyable; 14 are flown by Buffalo Airways of Canada, supplying research stations and mining camps in the Northwest Territories. A few have been converted to firefighting aircraft.
This C-54D was built as a R5D-3 Skymaster, Bureau Number 56511, for the US Navy in 1945, and served until 1962 as a standard transport for the Military Air Transport Service (MATS); it was converted to a VC-54S executive transport at that time and would stay in Navy service until 1975, when it was retired from military service and offered as surplus. It would then go through no less than eleven owners, and had the dubious distinction of being seized twice for running drugs. Finally, in 1995, it was donated by its last owner to the South Dakota Air and Space Museum at Ellsworth AFB.
Today, it has been restored as 42-72592, its initial order number as a C-54D for the USAAF, before being transferred to the Navy. It is displayed as a C-54D as used by the USAF in the 1950s, with a white upper fuselage (to reduce heat on passengers) and otherwise bare metal finish.
Douglas C-54D Skymaster
After the success of the DC-3, Douglas Aircraft began looking into a four-engined airliner with true transcontinental range—as successful as the DC-3 was, it still had to make an average of five stops between New York and Los Angeles. Douglas wanted an aircraft that would need at most one stop, if that. United Airlines was interested in such an aircraft, and Douglas built the DC-4E to United’s requirements: this was a 42-seat airliner with a triple-tail unit and a wide fuselage for passenger comfort.
While the DC-4E had promise, it was also technically complicated, and both United and the other launch customer, Eastern Airlines, rejected it after its first flight in June 1938. Douglas then designed a simpler, slightly smaller and more streamlined aircraft, with a single tail and longer nose. This new version, simply designated DC-4, met the airlines’ requirements, but before it could enter revenue service, the attack on Pearl Harbor brought the United States into the war, and the DC-4 production line was immediately converted to building aircraft for the US Army Air Force as the C-54 Skymaster.
While not as widespread, as produced, or as versatile as the C-47 Skytrain, the C-54 had longer range and could carry more passengers. Some were used as purely cargo aircraft, but most served as passenger transports: it was the only USAAF cargo aircraft that could fly nonstop over the Atlantic to England. 1170 were built during the war.
After the end of the war, Douglas built a further 72 DC-4s before switching to the larger and more advanced DC-6; it was unnecessary to build more, as the USAAF released half of the C-54 fleet as surplus. Like the C-47, these were rapidly bought by airlines, namely Pan American, who inaugurated transatlantic service in January 1946. Enough remained in the newly independent US Air Force to become the primary transport aircraft, alongside the C-47, for the balance of the 1940s and well into the 1950s.
The Skymaster’s defining moment came in 1948 when Josef Stalin, the dictator of the Soviet Union, had the city of West Berlin blockaded by land. Rather than back down, President Truman was determined to supply West Berlin from the air—something that had proven difficult for even the well-equipped Allies to do with much smaller military units in World War II, much less with a city of nearly a million people that needed a minimum of 500 tons of supplies a day. The C-47 could only haul about three tons apiece, but the C-54 could transport nearly ten tons.
Nearly every C-54 in USAF service, along with the similar R5Ds operated by the US Navy, were sent to Germany to supply Berlin, operating from June 1948 to April 1949. Specialized training for the mission was established at Great Falls AFB, Montana, where crews would experience similar weather to that experienced in Germany and would have plenty of open airspace to practice in—the air corridors of western Europe were far too crowded with transports for training. Once the course was completed, crews were sent to Rhein-Main airbase in Germany to begin Airlift duties, flying what crews called “the ladder” of three C-54 flights followed by a single C-47 flight to Berlin-Templehof airfield, with a turnaround time of less than half an hour on the ground, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in all weather. So important was the C-54 to the Airlift that the medal awarded for the mission consisted of a tiny gold Skymaster pin. When the Berlin Airlift ended, a thousand tons of supplies were being flown into Berlin, more than the city had received by land before the blockade began. The Berlin Airlift was the first success scored by the United States in the nascent Cold War, and bound the American aircrews tightly with a grateful German population, easing postwar tension.
Following the Berlin Airlift, the C-54 remained in service, though it was replaced in the transport role by the C-119 Flying Boxcar and the C-130 Hercules. C-54s were used extensively to fly personnel to the Korean War, and were still used both as executive transports and search-and-air rescue coordination aircraft during Vietnam. The last aircraft were withdrawn in 1974. 27 other air forces also used C-54s at one time or another. Today, about 40 C-54s are left, with half that number flyable; 14 are flown by Buffalo Airways of Canada, supplying research stations and mining camps in the Northwest Territories. A few have been converted to firefighting aircraft.
This C-54D was built as a R5D-3 Skymaster, Bureau Number 56511, for the US Navy in 1945, and served until 1962 as a standard transport for the Military Air Transport Service (MATS); it was converted to a VC-54S executive transport at that time and would stay in Navy service until 1975, when it was retired from military service and offered as surplus. It would then go through no less than eleven owners, and had the dubious distinction of being seized twice for running drugs. Finally, in 1995, it was donated by its last owner to the South Dakota Air and Space Museum at Ellsworth AFB.
Today, it has been restored as 42-72592, its initial order number as a C-54D for the USAAF, before being transferred to the Navy. It is displayed as a C-54D as used by the USAF in the 1950s, with a white upper fuselage (to reduce heat on passengers) and otherwise bare metal finish.