CHECK SIX: Trans World Airlines Goes All-Jet

As the sun rose on 7 April 1967, history was made as TWA became first US airline to go all pure-jet, having retired its Constellations and Starliners the night prior. The last TWA passenger Connie service was Flight 249 JFK-Philadelphia-Pittsburgh-Columbus-Louisville-St. Louis. The next day the last one flew to storage in Kansas City where there were 35 other Super Constellations and Starliners awaiting their fate. The night of 6 April, ground service crews put a booklet in all the seat back pockets of the TWA passenger aircraft titled "Props Are For Boats". 

The introduction of the Boeing 727 and Douglas DC-9 accelerated the Constellation retirement which by the 1960s were relegated to short haul domestic routes and some cargo flying. Two Connies soldiered on after 7 April on cargo-only duties, though. From the introduction of the Lockheed Constellation with TWA's dramatic 1944 delivery flight to Washington flown by Howard Hughes to its retirement to the 1967 retirement from passenger service, the Constellation family served TWA for 23 years with over 140 examples. 

Within two years, by 1969, Trans World Airlines had surpassed the iconic Pan American in the number of passengers carried across the Atlantic. 

Further reading: 

Amidst Internal Turmoil, TWA Orders the Boeing 727

The History of the TWA Moonliner

The Cadillac of the Constellation Line

The Holy Grail of Nonstop Transcontinental Service

(Photo: FlyerTalk Forums)

The Barrier Patrols: Extending the US Radar Net Out to Sea

The three main continental radar picket lines of  the Cold War

As early as 1946, the US Navy was already examining the possibility of large aircraft equipped with airborne radar as a means of extending the early warning detection times of fleets at sea. American defense planning in the early days of the Cold War assumed that whatever strike capabilities the United States had, the Soviets also had an equivalent. Since intercontinental ballistic missiles had yet to be fielded in significant numbers at the time, long range bombers like the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, its successor the B-50 Superfortress and the massive Convair B-36 Peacemaker formed the main strategic nuclear strike force of the United States. The assumptions of Soviet capabilities were validated with the unveiling of the Soviet reverse-engineered B-29, the Tupolev Tu-4 "Bull". With jet bombers on the drawing boards of US manufacturers, it was assumed that intercontinental jet bombers were also under development in the Soviet Union. Since the predominant Soviet bomber at the time was the Tu-4, its range meant that it would have to come over the North Pole to strike US targets. In November 1950, the United States and Canada agreed to build three lines of radar stations across the northern reaches of North America. The Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line formed the northernmost chain of stations that stretched from Alaska across the Canadian Arctic coast. The second line was the Mid-Canada Line that stretched across the northern parts of the Canadian provinces. The third line of radar stations was the Pinetree Line that stretched across the US-Canadian border. Several major defense studies at the time expressed concern that air refueling by the Soviets or use of bases secured in Alaska or Greenland and Iceland would allow Soviet bombers to fly around the three radar lines across Canada since they ended at the coasts. There was no doubt that there would be a need for a sea-based radar picket line in the Pacific and Atlantic, the problem was who was going to fund it and who was going to run it and on this count, the US Navy and the USAF couldn't agree on anything useful. Each service tried to push off the seaborne radar picket on the other- the Navy felt air defense as the USAF's job, so it should fund and run the system, but the USAF felt since it was sea-based, it should be the Navy's responsibility. 

Both services did come around the need to contribute to some sort of sea-based radar picket to extend the three radar lines in Alaska and Canada to prevent Soviet bombers flying around the land-based radars and approaching towards the west and east coast. The Navy's recommendation was for a combination of radar picket ships and airborne early warning (AEW) aircraft maintaining a barrier line in the mid-ocean in both the Atlantic and Pacific called SEADEW (SEAward-extension of the DEW Line). The AEW aircraft would fly racetrack orbits over the line of radar picket ships. When needed, both the picket ships and AEW aircraft could be called upon to support fleet operations. The USAF recommendation was slightly different, with AEW aircraft orbiting preset locations off the coasts and tied in by data-links to the land-based radar net. While similar in principle, the issue came down to funding as well as control. The Navy favored semi-autonomous ships and AEW aircraft that could also be used for fleet operations, offering flexibility. The USAF's Air Defense Command wanted a system that was tied into the existing radar net. Quite obviously, the Navy didn't want to fund and operate a system that was controlled by the USAF and vice versa. 

US Navy WV-2 Warning Star flies over a DER radar picket ship

Feeling that the USAF was dragging its feet and wanting a system operational that was flexible enough to support the fleet when needed, the Navy went ahead and proceeded to get the SEADEW operational during the Korean War. The Navy converted a number of destroyer escorts to destroyer escort radar (DER) vessels along with putting back into service some wartime radar picket destroyers. The Navy also procured the Lockheed WV-2 Warning Star, an AEW aircraft based on the Lockheed Super Constellation. Airborne early warning squadrons were established for the Atlantic and Pacific. The first units were multi-tasked with not just SEADEW missions but also fleet support and weather reconnaissance. VW-1 and VW-3 were assigned to the Pacific Fleet while VW-2 and VW-4 were assigned to the Atlantic Fleet. It was VW-4 that would become well known as the original "Hurricane Hunters" before the mission was transferred to the USAF. In addition to these initial Warning Star squadrons, additional units were stood up devoted primarily to flying the radar barrier patrols- VW-11, VW-13, VW-15 and a training unit were assigned the Atlantic barrier and the VW-12, VW-16, VW-16 and a maintenance unit were assigned to the Pacific barrier. The Pacific Barrier was headquartered at NAS Barbers Point in Hawaii with the barrier line running between Midway Island to the Aleutians in Alaska. The Atlantic Barrier was based at NAS Argentia in Newfoundland and ran from Newfoundland to the Azores. The DER picket ships patrolled those lines as well. Because the Navy's barrier lines were further out, they offered anywhere from 2-4 hours advance warning time of a Soviet bomber attack. 

A USAF RC-121D Warning Star with two F-104 Starfighters

Despite competing with the Navy, the USAF's AEW line complemented the Navy barrier patrols as it was closer to shore and formed a second radar line behind the SEADEW. The USAF also procured the AEW version of the Lockheed Constellation with the designation RC-121C which was based on the L-749 Constellation and the RC-121D which was based on the longer L-1049 Super Constellation. Called the Contiguous Extension, the RC-121 fleet was the USAF's first organized airborne early warning endeavor. On the West Coast, the USAF Contiguous Extension was based out of McClellan AFB near Sacramento and the East Coast operation was headquartered out of Otis AFB on Cape Cod. Since the Navy was first out of the starting blocks and was further ahead in its AEW operation, until sufficient RC-121s arrived, the USAF had to send its personnel to train with the Navy. At Otis AFB, the 551st Airborne Early Warning and Control Wing had three squadrons and the 552d AEW&C Wing at McClellan AFB also had three squadrons. In less than two years, the USAF had six squadrons of fifty AEW aircraft and over 5,000 personnel operational! 

The Lockheed WV-2/RC-121s had a combat radius of over 1,000 miles which allowed them to patrol for 16 hours before returning to base. Five officers and thirteen enlisted made up the crews, but the aircraft had the room for up to 31 personnel on longer missions needing an augmented crew. Behind the flight deck were five radar stations. There was no automation or filtering of the radar information- what was seen on the scope was the raw feed and it was up to the skill of the operator to sort through the mess to determine what was significant. Each radar station was manned in just one hour stretches to prevent fatigue and inattention. The radar system and its associated electronics had over 3,000 vacuum tubes and two enlisted in the crew were devoted just to inflight maintenance of the electronics. Most of the electronics were in the aft cabin and generated a tremendous amount of heat- it wasn't unusual for the temperature inside the cabin to hit 100F! Weather rarely scrubbed a mission- the joke was that "If you can taxi, you can fly!" Often times USAF or US Navy crews departed in such atrocious weather that they had to divert to an alternate field on return from patrol. 

The Navy's aircraft did a lot of their data interpretation aloft as they operated on the barrier lines autonomously and would radio any findings by HF. The USAF's aircraft were tied in by datalinks to the SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment) system used by NORAD and operators ashore would sort through the radar data. Despite this level of automation, USAF RC-121s were staffed with full crews in the event the data links went down as well as have onsite personnel who could interpret radar data without waiting for the SAGE operators ashore. The USAF's RC-121s were later re-designated EC-121s and they flew their patrols around 15,000 feet. The Navy's WV-2s flew their patrols at lower altitudes between 5,000 to 8,000 feet. The strategic imperative of these radar missions was such that spare aircraft and crew were often prepared to be able to depart at a moment's notice should an aircraft en route to its patrol area had technical issues- and those were common given the cantankerous nature of the Constellation's Wright R-3350 engines. While the US Navy did its best to keep its barrier lines fully covered, the USAF settled on randomly patrolling parts of its Contiguous Extension, and more so as the main threat to the United States shifted from bombers to ICBMs. Each coast had nine patrol stations, odd numbered 1 through 9 in the Pacific with 1 near the Aleutians and 9 off the coast of Baja California. In the Atlantic, even numbered patrol stations 2 through 8 in the Atlantic were used. Each patrol station was a 100 mile racetrack orbit. In low tension periods, USAF EC-121s would only operated on one station and the station was randomly decided, the crew finding out which station once they had taken off. During periods of higher tension, more stations would be active. During such periods, all of the USAF stations were operated on both coasts and this meant every four hours an EC-121 departed from McClellan AFB and Otis AFB. 

Despite the maximum effort expended by the US Navy and the USAF, several air defense exercises in the late 1950s showed the barrier patrols weren't as effective as hoped. Electronic failures were the most common cause of a degraded mission with engine problems a distant second. At one point in 1959 the USAF's Air Defense Command had gotten so frustrated with electronic and engine issues with the EC-121 fleet a proposal was floated to transfer the Contiguous Extension operation to the US Navy! Fortunately cooler heads prevailed and the USAF wasn't allowed to give its AEW experience. But the strain on men, aircraft, and budgets began to take its toll on both services. In 1960 the US Navy disestablished some Pacific Fleet squadrons, merging them into other units. During the FY1961 budget debate, questions arose as to the wisdom of continued funding of the barrier patrols in light of the shift in Soviet threat from bombers to ICBMs. The USAF and the Navy had other funding priorities and gradually, both the Navy and USAF barrier patrols were wound down. The Atlantic barrier line was pushed further east centered on a Greenland-Iceland-UK axis with the base of patrols at NAS Keflavik in Iceland. On 8 September 1965, the last AEW barrier mission was flown by a Navy EC-121P (in 1962 the Navy and USAF went to a unified designation system) out of Argentia, ending 10 years of barrier patrols over the Atlantic and Pacific by both the USAF and US Navy. 

So was it worth it? That's a tough question. In the 1950s the bomber threat was still the main nuclear threat and certainly there was deterrent value in the barrier patrols as potential adversaries were put on notice the great lengths the US military was taking to insure vigilance. Perhaps more importantly, it gave both the US Navy and USAF practical airborne early warning experience that laid the foundations for modern aircraft like the Grumman E-2 Hawkeye and the Boeing E-3 Sentry. 

Source: AWACS and Hawkeyes: The Complete History of Airborne Early Warning Aircraft by Edwin Leigh Armistead. Motorbooks International, 2002, pp 21-40. Photos: Wikipedia

The Birth of Indian Commercial Aviation and Its Father

The pre-war network of Tata Air Lines.

Rather curiously amongst Britain's possessions in the interwar years of the 1920s and 1930s, commercial aviation remained neglected in India in comparison to what was taking place elsewhere in the Empire. Some of this was due to perceived stereotypes of the day that the vast majority of India was made up of illiterate peasants and that the British government through New Delhi conducted business with select members of the Indian aristocracy. Some of this was also due to the perception that India already had an extensive rail network that made airlines superfluous. And for many in the main British overseas airline of the day, Imperial Airways, the priority interest in the region was the development of a route connecting the United Kingdom with Australia with India being more of a refueling stop along the way. Whatever the misconceptions and prejudices of the day, development of commercial aviation in India prior to the Second World War became the purview of the country's growing merchant class who saw commercial aviation not just as a tool for business, but also as a business opportunity in a modernizing nation. Foremost amongst these individuals was J.R.D. Tata, the youthful head of the Tata Sons conglomerate which by the 1930s was already the largest business enterprise in India with holdings in manufacturing, textile mills, iron works, and even hydroelectric plants. J.R.D. Tata was so enamored with aviation that he himself learned to fly, earning the first pilot's license to be given to an Indian. 

Unlike Europe, the New Delhi government expected any airline established to be self-funded without any subsidy or assistance. This proved to be significant barrier for any sort of entry into the market, but given that Tata Sons Limited was the largest business in India, funding would be no issue at the start. In July 1932 J.R.D. Tata established an aviation department in the company as private enterprise and on 15 October 1932 launched services connecting Karachi (Imperial Airways' main gateway to India at the time) to the southern city of Madras via Ahmedabad, Bombay and Bellary with a very modest fleet of two De Havilland Puss Moths which could carry two passengers plus the pilot. Tata himself flew the inaugural flight. It was quite an investment for Tata Sons Limited- the New Delhi government didn't just refuse to provide any subsidies, any investment in landing fields and navigational aids was non-existent as well. However, Tata's early success resulted in a ten-year air mail contract that did help offset the investment costs. Over the next several years Tata embarked on route expansions within India along with progressively larger aircraft like the De Havilland Dragon. By 1938 Tata Air Lines served every major city in southern India with connections to Karachi, New Delhi, and Colombo.

Disembarking from a Tata Air Lines DC-3.

During the Second World War, Tata Air Lines proved vital to supporting the war effort and with more contracts in hand, aircraft as large as the Douglas DC-2 were acquired along with further investment in the airport facilities at each of the cities it served, all under J.R.D. Tata's guiding hand. By the end of the war in 1945 not only had Tata expanded services to include every major Indian city, but had earned a position of prominence and reputation that would enhance India's aviation status in the world. The experience of running a scheduled airline to meet the exacting demands of the Allied war effort gave not just Tata valuable experience, but a whole host of other Indian carriers as well, the most prominent of which after Tata Air Lines was Indian National Airlines. By the time of India's independence in 1947 with the subsequent formation of Pakistan, Burma and Sri Lanka, Tata Air Lines found itself not just India's largest domestic airline, but also India's primary international airline as well. Tata Air Lines was on sound financial ground with surplus Douglas DC-3s now filling its fleet needs. On 29 July 1946 J.R.D. Tata took his airline public, raising a significant amount of capital for modernization of the airline's fleet. As part of the airline becoming a publicly-traded corporation, the name was changed to Air India with Tata himself at the helm. One of his first acts as head of the new Air India was an agreement with Howard Hughes' TWA whereby Air India acted as TWA's agent in India in exchange for technical assistance and training and an interchange link to the United States via TWA's own route network. In April of that year, Air India received its first postwar aircraft, the Vickers Viking. Given Air India's status as India's premier airline, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru asked Tata for Air India to be the nation's "chosen instrument" for international expansion (the fact that Tata had already ordered Lockheed Constellations undoubtedly helped). In March 1948 Air India was organized as a joint corporation split between J.R.D. Tata and the Indian government and the first two Lockheed Constellations were delivered to what was now branded as Air India International. On 8 June of that year, "Rajput Princess" and "Malabar Princess" would inaugurate Air India International's first Constellation services to London. 

Air India's early fleet were former Tata Air Lines DC-3s.

Significantly behind the new Air India International were a motley group of domestic carriers, of which the most prominent was Indian National Airways. The other seven airlines were of varying fiscal health and some even were still operating pre-war aircraft. Seeking rationalization in the airline industry of the nation, the Air Corporations Act of 1953 was passed which, in essence, nationalized the airline industry of India. J.R.D. Tata's Air India International obviously shoed-in for the all international services and the remaining seven airlines were merged into one entity named Indian Airlines which would have responsibility for all domestic services- the model being that of BOAC and BEA in the Great Britain. The nationalization of Air India International took place in June 1953 and it was allowed to keep two domestic trunk routes, Bombay-Calcutta and Bombay-New Delhi, in a complex pool agreement with Indian Airlines. The infusion of government capital allowed Air India to order not just Lockheed Super Constellations, but also the new De Havilland Comet as well in order to compete on a more even footing with BOAC's Comet services to the region. Ultimately the Comet order was canceled following the Comet tragedies that struck BOAC, but Air India's Super Constellations stretched its network throughout Asia to Africa and even to Moscow and the rest of Europe. By this time Air India had the clout to join the pooling agreement that BOAC and QANTAS had on the London-Sydney route. Beginning in December 1959, revenues between London and Sydney were split with BOAC getting 51%, QANTAS getting 28% and Air India getting 21%. But the most important aspect of the agreement was Air India getting Fifth Freedom rights from London- in the early 1960s this allowed Air India to launch Boeing 707 services to New York JFK via London Heathrow. 

For over forty years J.R.D. Tata remained at the helm of Air India from its first incarnation as a private company in his business conglomerate to its rise as an international carrier operating Boeing 747s across the globe (South America excepted). He would retire from Air India in 1980 and in 1982 at the age of 82 he re-enacted his inaugural Tata Air Lines flight from Madras to Karachi in a restored De Havilland Leopard Moth- and he did it solo. 

J.R.D. Tata

As an interesting footnote to the story, a few years before J.R.D. Tata retired, he gave a speech to a conference of Pacific area travel agents in New Delhi. After his customary review of the trends in the airline industry, he offered up a few predictions for the future of the airline industry that today are remarkably accurate:

-He anticipated the need for jetliners bigger than the 747, specifically pointing out opportunities for a 750-seat twin-deck jetliner.

-He accurately had predicted the pace of long-term growth in passenger numbers.

-He praised Sir Freddie Laker and his ideas on low-cost fares to stimulate more passenger traffic and was convinced that such budget fares were the wave of the future for the industry.

-He bemoaned the lack of foresight by the Indian government in investing in its aviation infrastructure, predicting that lack of capacity would be the biggest threat to the airline growth in India in the future.

-He questioned the economics of the Concorde and felt that supersonic flight would have little bearing on the future of jetliner development. 

Source: Airlines of Asia Since 1920 by R.E.G. Davies. Palawdr Press, 1997, p6-59.

The Cadillac of the Constellation Line

Through the 1950s Douglas and Lockheed engaged in a rivalry to create the ultimate propliner as each company successively improved its product line to appeal to the rapidly expanding passenger market. Douglas' DC-6 led to the more powerful DC-7 and even with this aircraft, the design was pushed even further with the DC-7C. In addition to more power and fuselage stretch, the "Seven Seas" also had a constant-chord wing-root section added inboard of the engines. Not only did this move the loud radials five feet further away from the passenger cabin, it also increased the aspect ratio of the wing, reduced drag, and provided more space for internal fuel. The DC-7C could now outperform Lockheed's flagship propliner, the L-1049G Super Constellation, in terms of speed, range, and payload, allowing all-year round nonstop trans-Atlantic service. Not to be outdone, Lockheed briefly considered a turboprop Constellation, the L-1449, using the new Pratt & Whitney T34 engine (which was used on the Douglas C-133 Cargomaster). While military Constellations did flight test both the T34 installation and the Allison 501 turboprop (military versions of which were used on the C-130 Hercules and P-3 Orion), Pratt & Whitney balked at the use of the T34 as they felt Lockheed was pushing the engine too far. 

Scrapping the L-1449 out of the dispute with Pratt & Whitney, Lockheed took the new wing design it had developed for the turboprop L-1449 and grafted it on a stretched L-1049 Super Constellation fuselage to give birth to what many consider to be one of the ultimate piston engine airliners, the L-1649 Starliner. The wing was modified to accept the powerful Wright R-3350-18EA Turbo Compound radial engines which were originally developed to power the Navy's Lockheed P-2 Neptune patrol bomber. The 18-cylinder R-3350 instead of using a turbocharger for high altitude performance had power recovery turbines instead (PRTs)- one PRT collected the exhaust gases from six cylinders to deliver more power back to the engine crankshaft, providing a 500 horsepower boost. The same engines were used on the DC-7C as well. The long wing of the Starliner gave it the highest aspect ratio wing of any propliner, 12:1, and this translated to improved performance over the DC-7C. Nearly 2,000 gallons more of fuel could be carried compared to the Super Constellation. Like the DC-7C, the longer wing put the inboard engine nacelles further away from the passenger cabin. 

The Starliner made its first flight from Burbank on 10 October 1956. Amazingly, only three Starliners were used for a short 251-hour flight test program to get airworthiness approval on 19 March 1957. With a cost of $3 million per aircraft, TWA inaugurated L-1649 Starliner services on 1 June 1957, exactly one year to the day that the Douglas DC-7C was introduced into service. Though the DC-7C was faster, the Starliner had a longer range as well as a quiet and smooth ride thanks to increased sound insulation in the cabin and a flexible wing that dampened inflight turbulence. TWA marketed its Starliners as "Jetstream Starliners" and on marketing artwork, the wingspan of the Starliner was exaggerated to make the engines appear further from the fuselage than they were. In addition, artists cleverly depicted the Starliner without propellers, much to the ire of competing airlines that cried foul over the advertising campaign they called deceptive. TWA's famous inflight Ambassador Service was upgraded for the Starliners. The passenger seats were called "Siesta Sleeper Seats" that had pull out foot rests and a deep seatback recline that were nearly as comfortable as the sleeper berths which of course were still available on the Starliner's long routes. In the lounge area of each Starliner were cabin wall murals created specifically for TWA's aircraft by the artist Mario Zamparelli that showcased TWA's overseas destinations. 

The long range of the L-1649 Starliner allowed TWA to open up polar routes from the US West Coast to Europe. The inaugural TWA polar flight, Polar Flight 801, set a world record for the longest piston engine airliner flight on 2 October 1957 when flying westbound from London to San Francisco, encountered strong headwinds that resulted in a marathon 23-hour 19-minute nonstop flight. As impressive as the capabilities of the Starliner were, only TWA, Air France, and Lufthansa would be first-liner operators as few of the world's airlines had a route network and passenger traffic that made the Starliner economical. The Starliner only flew first line services for less than three years before getting displaced by the Boeing 707 and as a result of coming to market one year later than the Douglas DC-7C, only 44 Starliners were built compared to 121 DC-7Cs. When the final L-1649 Starliner was rolled out of the Burbank factory on 12 February 1958 for Lufthansa, it wasn't just the last Starliner but it was the end of the line for the Constellation family that stretched back to 1943. 

One interesting side note from TWA's operation of the Starliner came about due to reliability issues with the R-3350 Turbo Compound engines. While they were some of the most powerful piston engines ever flown, they were a maintenance nightmare compounded by the intricate plumbing work of the three power recovery turbines. In fact, TWA mechanics joked that PRT actually stood for "Parts Recovery Turbine". To minimize the disruption caused by engine failures, TWA acquired a military surplus Fairchild C-82 Packet transport that had a Westinghouse J34 engine in a dorsal nacelle as a jet booster. Nicknamed "Ontos" (the Greek word for "thing"), the C-82 could carry whole R-3350 Turbo Compound engines and a maintenance team to outlying stations where a Starliner might be stranded. Even though the Starliner would be phased out of TWA service, the airline kept Ontos in service to carry spare jet engines for the Boeing 707 and even the Boeing 747, finally retiring the odd bird in January 1972. 

Source: From Props to Jets: Commercial Aviation's Transition to the Jet Age 1952-1962 by Craig Kodera, Mike Machat, and Jon Proctor. Specialty Press, 2010, p77-85. 

The Rise of Coach Class Airfares

Prior to the Second World War, several small airlines tried to break into the market by offering low fares, but none of them survived as at the time, passenger operations were only sustainable at charging fares that were roughly 10 cents a mile. The first serious attempt at low fares on a sustained basis came from United Air Lines which started what it called "Sky Coach" service on 10 April 1940 between San Francisco and Los Angeles with intermediate stops with a fare over the whole route coming out to $13.90 (approximately 3.5 cents per mile). The reasoning for the Sky Coach service's low fares were that it would only use 10-passenger Boeing 247s that were already old and paid off, therefore cheaper to operate and would offer a less extravagant level of service than on United's primary services between the two cities. The "Sky Coach" ended on 23 April 1942 with the mobilization of the US airline fleet to support the war effort. 

In the immediate postwar period, the boom in air travel meant there were more passengers than seats and the airlines were in no rush to cut prices. In those days, fares were governed by the US Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) and any rate cut had to pass their review as not being detrimental to the general interest of the industry and the route in question. If an airline wished to offer low fares, they had to provide rationale to the CAB to approve those fares in the days before deregulation. A growing number of charter and non-scheduled airlines, however, began to slowly nip away at the passenger market that was long the exclusive domain on the established trunk and local service carriers. These airlines offered low-frills services at cut rate prices that eventually forced the established airlines to act. The first out of the block with the first scheduled coach class service in the United States on 4 November 1948 was Capital Airlines on the lucrative Chicago-New York route. Capital charted only 4 cents per mile instead of the standard 6 cents per mile on the route established by the CAB. It justified the coach class fares to the CAB by using older Douglas DC-4s with high-density seating for 60 passengers. Only the minimum of inflight services was provided and the flights were scheduled at off peak hours and late at night so not to detract from Capital's own premium services. After approving Capital's coach class services, other airlines raced to establish their own coach class services and the CAB was so flooded with applications for approval that it was forced to issue a policy statement, apprehensive that the airlines would end up offering services that was out of balance with their operating costs:

"We would caution the carriers that the burden of proof for additional coach class service is clearly on them. We do not propose to allow the indiscriminate extension of coach fares, no do we intend to permit a general debasement of the existing passenger fare level."

Regardless, on a case-by-case basis, the CAB approved numerous other coach class services and within a year of Capital's ground breaking services, coach fares could be found on most major routes. On 27 December 1949, both American Airlines and TWA offered the first transcontinental coach class services on high-density seating DC-4s with several stops. The fares were around $110, and due to the success of the services, in less than a year both airlines replaced the elderly DC-4s with better equipment- American put DC-6s on the routes and TWA put Lockheed Constellations on the coach routes. Curiously, though, United refused to start its own coach services despite its own experiments in 1940 with the Sky Coach. William "Pat" Patterson, United's paternalistic president, warned that expansion of coach fares would lead to chaos in the market and ruin the fare structure of the industry. After holding out, United finally introduced its own coach services on 14 May 1950 with 60-seat DC-4s between Los Angeles and San Francisco at 3 cents per mile. United's services ran at night and at off peak hours until later than summer when Western Air Lines added its own daytime coach services. For the remainder of the year, United and Western fought a small fare war on coach services in California.

To get CAB approval for these services, the airlines had voluntarily imposed all sorts of restrictions on the fares from off-peak schedules, no discounts, no refunds, less on-board amenities, and reduced seat pitch. Most of this was done freely by the industry to protect their own premium services. In 1950 the CAB issued another policy statement that the objective of fares should be to balance the ratio of fares to seating standards so that the net revenue per flight should be the same, irrespective of the ticket prices. This had the effect of eroding many of the previous restrictions on coach fares due to competition- since an airline merely had to demonstrate to the CAB that the net revenue on a given route didn't change much, airlines began to incorporate coach class cabins on their regular flights. Coach fares were now available for daytime flights and peak times. As a result, United set its coach fares on all flights on the West Coast at 4.5 cents per mile and for flights within California, coach fares were set at 3.5 cents per mile. Much to United's surprise (and undoubtedly to that of Pat Patterson), United's coach fares were a huge success and the airline aggressively introduced coach class cabins on its transcontinental services between San Francisco and New York at only $110 on 25 September 1951. 

But the expansion of United's coach class cabins got the attention of the United States Senate's Select Committee on Small Business. The committee investigated the CAB decisions regarding coach class services and found that the Board had unfairly been favoring the established airlines and criticized the CAB's strict policies on charter airlines and non-scheduled airlines that had shown a market for low airfares. So in November 1951 the CAB reversed direction but instead of taking a more favorable approach to the charter and non-scheduled carriers, the CAB denied transcontinental applications of several carriers and instead directed the established airlines to expand coach class fares on their network. Many of the smaller airlines cried foul, but the political influence of the established airlines maintained the CAB's change in policy. The airlines now began to aggressively push coach class fares, particularly on the transcontinental routes by by 1952 the coach class fare between New York and Los Angeles had fallen to $99 and New York to Chicago fell to only $32. By 1955, coach class fares had grown exponentially to the point that on some routes, the coach class cabin took up more space than the first class cabins that once made up the entire cabin of airliners of the day. As traffic soared into the 1960s, the majority of airline passengers in the United States would travel via coach class fares, laying down the foundation for the beginnings of deregulation in the 1970s.

Source: Airlines of the United States Since 1914 by R.E.G. Davies. Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998, p336-338.

In 1946 a Pan Am Lockheed Constellation departed New York La Guardia bound for London when an engine fire developed soon after takeoff. The Constellation belly-landed on a 4500 foot grass strip in Connecticut with no injuries to the crew or passengers. The engine fire burned through the engine mounts and by the time the Connie came back over land, the engine and its prop fell off completely before the aircraft landed. With stainless steel firewalls, an engine fire could be contained within the nacelle for 30 minutes.

Pan Am repaired the aircraft and lightened it as much as possible with minimal fuel and it was able to take off from the grass strip in only 2000 feet. Back at La Guardia, the burnt out nacelle was faired over the three-engined aircraft ferried to Lockheed in California for rework. Until the arrival of the Boeing 727, that was the fastest flight yet by a three-engined aircraft.

Source: Aviation History, July 2009. "Call Her Connie" by Stephen Wilkinson, p26.