Profile – Douglas DC-6 and 7

To most Australians, the Douglas DC-6 series of airliners were not significant aircraft. That national Institution, Qantas, selected the Lockheed Constellation for its post-war expansion and romantic notions of air travel and distant places in the late forties and fifties were closely allied with this elegant three-tailer.

The Douglas product was also associated with the failure of Holyman’s Australian National Airways. TAA’s turbine smooth Viscounts were seen as the epitome of modern air transport with which the DC-6 could not compete. Finally, there was tragedy. British Commonwealth Pacific Airlines lost one of its DC-6s at San Francisco, killing world-famous pianist, William Kapell.

If the DC-6 had a problem here, it was its image, for it was a straightforward, totally unremarkable-looking aircraft. Nevertheless, it did have one overriding virtue – it was the most economical and arguably the finest piston-engined airliner ever built.

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