Big Prop Wishlist 2: Diesel Fours

There is a dearth of coverage in 1:400 scale of the 1940s and 1950s, partly because the models are small in 1:400, older collectors have gravitated to 1:200 and also because the modern collector only seems to care about A350s and 787s. That's a real shame but doesn't mean there is no hope for more DC-4s. Of course, the one hope remaining is Aeroclassics.

Aeroclassics has made 52 Douglas DC-4s and 15 Rolls-Royce Merlin powered Douglas DC-4Ms / Canadair Argonauts. Unfortunately there have been no releases since 2018 and no unique releases since 2017. 

Only 80 DC-4s were actually built, but of course there were also 1,163 C-54 / R5 Skymasters, which formed the postwar equipment of a whole host of major, charter and non-sked airlines. Although the type left the fleet of some of the majors, such as American Airlines, quite quickly when replaced by DC-6s and Constellations, it remained in the fleet of others well into the 1960s.

The Aeroclassics DC-4 is another cracking Aeroclassics piston-liner mould. Given its excellence, and the historical importance of the aircraft, it is thoroughly deserving of some more releases. What follows is a short list of attractive and well known DC-4 operators that would make great additions to the collection of any discerning collector.

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US Trunk Airlines

The Trunk airlines represented some of the largest airlines in the world during the 1940s and 50s. There is still plenty of ground to cover here as although American, United, Eastern, Western, TWA and Capital have all had releases almost all US trunks operated the Skymaster. Particularly crying out for some representation are Chicago & Southern Air Lines  and Colonial Air Lines.

RuthAS / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)

Some other nice shots of Colonial DC-4s can be found at Ed Coates site here.

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Intrastate and International

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Non-Sked and Cargo

War surplus C-54s were in demand for operations with many non-scheduled airlines (non-skeds) and cargo flyers of varying reputations. These five are quite well known and colourful examples:

http://www.seaboardairlines.org/aircraft/dc4-7.htm

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Australia / New Zealand

The DC-4 was also the backbone of the immediate postwar Australian fleet serving not only with Ansett and TAA but also Australian National and British Commonwealth Pacific (BCPA):

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Rest of the World

In the rest of the world there are many DC-4 operators yet to see a model but of those Air France, Swissair, South African and TACA would probably sell in enough numbers to merit a look:

Allen Drebert / Public domain

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Summary

I hope that we will see some more of the Aeroclassics DC-4 and if any can be made they would surely feature some of the above. For me the following would be my top 5:

• Chicago & Southern
• Colonial Air Lines
• Delta (original clrs)
• PSA
• BCPA