Last of the Line

On Douglas Aircraft Co., Inc.'s airport at Santa Monica, Calif. last week, Test Pilot John Martin climbed into the silver belly of the newest Douglas transport, the DC-7. For an hour, Pilot Martin and his three engineers gave last-minute checks to the 600 dials and indicators in the cockpit and flight engineer's compartment. Then they sent the huge, four-engine plane scooting along the runway and into the air on its first test flight, while 12,000 Douglas employees around the field set up a cheer.

The big plane is much like the DC-6B, but it has its own important differences. The DC-6B's Pratt & Whitney 2,500-h.p. engines have been replaced by 3,250-h.p. Wright turbo-compound engines, which use their exhaust jet to turn small turbines. This has stepped up the cruising speed to 365 m.p.h. (v. 310 in the DC-6Bs), making it possible to fly from New York to Los Angeles nonstop in eight hours. The plane has a cruising range of 4,450 miles, and, unlike the DC-6, can easily fly the Atlantic nonstop. The 69-passenger DC-7 is 40 inches longer than the DC-6B, carries five more passengers. Other features: an air-conditioning system which operates on the ground as well as in the air; special soundproofing. Douglas already has orders for 58 DC-7s (25 each to American and United Airlines, four each to Delta and National), will soon begin delivery at $1,700,000 each.

Douglas also expects to sell the plane to foreign lines, fears no competition from Britain's Comet. While the Comet will go faster between stops, Douglas thinks that the DC-7 will beat it in elapsed time because it will not have to make the refueling stops needed by the shorter-range Comet. Douglas is still tight-lipped about its own plans for jet transports, but the DC-7, says Vice President Arthur Raymond, "is definitely our last piston-type transport of the DC-7 size."

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