DC-4s to Patterson

Painful to U. S. airlines is the dizzy rate at which transport planes grow obsolete. In 1933 United Air Lines paid $2,500,000 for 55 Boeing 247s. Within six months the new Douglas DC2 outloaded, outsped them. When T.W.A. bought a fleet of DC-2s, United spent $1,500,000 more revamping its Boeings. But Douglas engineers were already mocking-up (building a model) the still bigger & better DC-3.

Lest this cut throat competition spill too much of aviation's lifeblood, United's President William Allan Patterson approached T.W.A., American, Pan American and Eastern with a bold proposition: let them finance a common plane that would standardize equipment. Such a plane he foresaw as the DC-4. It would carry 42 passengers, four engines, travel at 240 m.p.h. Six months later the Big Five contracted not to invest in any transport heavier than 43,500 lbs. other than the DC-4. Each company could then be dealt one apiece for as many rounds as they mutually agreed upon. If, however, none spoke up, United would get the first off the assembly line.

But to Mr. Patterson's dismay in 1937 Pan American ordered Boeing 307s just under the weight limit. Later American and T.W.A. began flirting with heavy planes.

Last week as the option deadline lapsed, the four stayed clam-silent. This meant that United might have to pay more for the six DC-4s it bought last fortnight. But it also meant that if President Patterson's hunch is sound, when the DC-4s are operating in 1941, United might bag the lion's share of transcontinental air traffic.

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