Produced by Cate & McGlone, United Airlines presents this 1950’s era, color movie called, Flying Colors. The film attempts to reassure the public about air travel by showing the maintenance procedures followed by United on its new DC-7 Mainliners. It was made just prior to the debut of the jet powered Boeing 707, which is discussed at the 5:30 mark. Written by Walter Wise, directed by T.W. Cate, photographed by E.D. McGlone, edited by Charles Cahill, with music supervision by Jack Meakin and production supervision by Bernard Kovnat. The film is dedicated to United men and women in aircraft maintenance for United Airlines. The movie opens with an image of an analog clock on the wall, it is 6:59 EST, 1:15. An image of United Airline planes flying over various American cities, 1:30. A plane flies over Hawaii, 1:50. The United Airlines maintenance base is shown, 3:27. Workers leave the maintenance factory, 3:40. Planes are seen at the maintenance docks, 3:50. A plane is rolled in for maintenance, preventive maintenance and quality assurance, 4:20. The men schedule maintenance reports, 4:50. Men sit in the board room to go over plans for future designs and maintenance for United planes, 5:15. Different placards are shown with different airplane designs,5:34. The executives discuss new plans for different United planes, 6:05. Planes roll by on the tarmac at an airport, 6:55. Maintenance men check the propellers, batteries and tires of the planes. 7:15. Quality assurance management in the maintenance analysis division are shown, 8:15. Men work with airline parts in the factory, 8:40. Engineering groups for the airline are shown, 9:00. Designers who make parts and tools work in their offices, 9:30. Men on the factor floor are shown, 9:50. Spot welders work with large sheets of steel, 10:05. Engines are removed and inspected at the factory, 11:05. The engine shop takes delivery of an engine and dismantle and clean it, 11:30. Maintenance workers inspect and re-inspect the engine parts for accuracy and safety, 12:20. On the reassembly line, the clean parts are put back together into a maintained engine, 12:45. Propeller spins, 12:58. Cleaning crew scrubs down the plane, 13:25. Fabrics for the plane are assembled in the sewing factory, 13:47. In the radio, instrument and electrical shops, factory workers calculate their tasks with fine precision, 14:20. Propellers are taken apart and their parts examined, 14:50. Propellers are finely balanced and reconstructed, 15:10. Men work on the wings with rivets, 15:40. The landing gear is checked for maintenance, 16:00. Hydraulic systems are checked, 16:15. The outside and inside facades of the plane get final treatment in the rebuilding process, 16:30. Inspectors follow every move of the maintenance team, 16:52. The giant engines takes its place on the plane, 17:10. Seats are installed on the plane, 17:28. Inspections continue over the entire plane, 17:42. Radio equipment is installed, 18:05. The plane is finally ready to roll out of the loading bay, 18:35. In the light of the day, there is further inspection, 18:45. Maintenance men crawl all over the plane, making sure everything is just right and ready for test flights, 19:15. Test flight crews board the plane, 19:30. Co-pilot checks out the plane, 19:45. A United plane takes off on a test flight with a testing crew, 20:45. Men in the cockpit clear the plane for takeoff, 21:00. Plane soars over the clouds, 21:42. Pilots test the instruments in the cockpit, 22:20. Landing gear is checked, 22:30. The flying power reserves are tested, 22:50. The engines are deliberately shut off for testing, 23:00. The plane soars at 16,000 feet over the clouds, 24:28. The plane banks and turns, 24:47. The maintenance workers from United Airlines are featured, 25:30. The plane comes in for a landing, 26:45.

The Douglas DC-7 is a transport aircraft built by the Douglas Aircraft Company from 1953 to 1958. It was the last major piston engine-powered transport made by Douglas, being developed shortly after the earliest jet airliner—the de Havilland Comet—entered service and only a few years before the jet-powered Douglas DC-8 first flew. Like other aircraft in Douglas’s collection of propeller-driven aircraft, examples remain in service in the present day, albeit in significantly lower numbers than the far more successful DC-3 and DC-6.

This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com