Transport: DC-4

(See front cover)

One afternoon this week a huge, shiny-new plane will be towed out on to Douglas Aircraft Co.'s 63-acre field at Santa Monica, Calif. While it lies there in the sun, sleek, lazy-looking and long, the thousands of spectators who line the field will wonder not whether DC-4 will fly—they will be reasonably certain that it will do that—but whether it will prove itself the super-plane it was designed to be. U. S. airlines will be watching too, for if DC-4 can do what it promises—carry a big payload cheaply—U. S. commercial...