Dating to the 1950s, this United Airlines travelogue shows a HOLIDAY IN HAWAII. The aircraft featured is a DC-7, that could make the trip from the U.S. West Coast in 8 “short hours”. The film features stunning images of Hawaii in the age before jet air travel transformed the islands, with terrific images of Waikiki Beach, Diamond Head, the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, surfing (9:00 mark) and many other sights in Honolulu and beyond. The film also contains great footage of the Honolulu airport with hula girls and blue skies, and the incredible in-flight service on the DC-7. Also seen in the film is the DC-6B aircraft.
Incidentally the N6322C DC-7 seen in this film was scrapped in 1965, roughly 12 years after it made its maiden voyage, as the jet age dawned.
An Aloha Airlines DC-3 and Hawaiian Airlines aircraft are also seen in the film, making a flight to Kauai from Oahu.
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.
Early DC-7s were purchased only by U.S. carriers. European carriers could not take advantage of the small range-increase of the early DC-7, so Douglas released an extended-range variant, the DC-7C (Seven Seas) in 1956. Two 5 ft (1.5 m) wingroot inserts added fuel capacity, reduced interference drag, and made the cabin quieter by moving the engines farther outboard; all DC-7Cs had the nacelle fuel tanks previously seen on Pan American’s and South African’s DC-7Bs. The fuselage, which had been extended over the DC-6B’s with a 40 in (100 cm) plug behind the wing for the DC-7 and −7B, was lengthened with a 40-inch plug ahead of the wing to give the DC-7C a total length of 112 ft 3 in (34.21 m).
Since the late 1940s Pan Am and other airlines had scheduled a few nonstop flights from New York to Europe, but westward nonstops against the prevailing wind were rarely possible with an economic payload. The L1049G and DC-7B that appeared in 1955 could occasionally make the westward trip, but in summer 1956 Pan Am’s DC-7C finally started doing it fairly reliably. BOAC was forced to respond by purchasing DC-7Cs rather than wait on the delivery of the Bristol Britannia. The DC-7C found its way into several other overseas airlines’ fleets, including SAS, which used them on cross-polar flights to North America and Asia. The DC-7C sold better than its rival, the Lockheed L-1649A Starliner, which entered service a year later, but sales were cut short by the arrival of Boeing 707 and Douglas DC-8 jets in 1958–60.
Starting in 1959 Douglas began converting DC-7s and DC-7Cs into DC-7F freighters to extend their useful lives. The airframes were fitted with large forward and rear freight doors and some cabin windows were removed.
The predecessor DC-6, especially the DC-6B, established a reputation for straightforward engineering and reliability. Pratt & Whitney, manufacturer of the DC-6’s Double Wasp engines, did not offer an effective larger engine apart from the Wasp Major, which had a reputation for poor reliability.[citation needed] Douglas turned to Wright Aeronautical for a more powerful engine. The Duplex-Cyclone had reliability issues of its own, and this affected the DC-7’s service record. Carriers who had both DC-6s and DC-7s in their fleets usually replaced the newer DC-7s first once jets started to arrive. Some airlines retired their DC-7s after little more than five years of service, whereas most DC-6s lasted longer and sold more readily on the secondhand market.
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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 and 2k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
