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That DC-4 may find the actual ceiling of air traffic's enormous room was suggested fortnight ago by Arthur E. Raymond, Douglas' vice president in charge of engineering. He pointed out to the Chamber of Commerce in Washington that there are three good reasons why transcontinental transport planes will never have to fly much higher: 1) the higher they fly, the more oxygen and pressure equipment is necessary, which subtracts from potential payload (passengers and freight); 2) the overwhelming majority of U. S. passenger business is in short hauls, for which "substratosphere" flight is useless, since the time used for climbing and gliding eats up what is saved by high flight; 3) because there is little wind in the substratosphere and because prevailing winds at lower levels are westerly, highest altitudes do not make for highest speeds on West-East flights.
¶ Most interesting structural innovation of the DC-4 is its retractable tricycle landing gear, with a large wheel in the nose. Thanks to this forward wheel, DC-4 will always be in flying position, horizontal, tail up. No tail skid is necessary because the tail will never be near the ground. Passengers in sleeper planes will no longer be wakened by the rearward slant at each landing. The plane can take off relatively quickly, can "fly into" a landing. Blind landings will therefore be less dangerous, and, contrary to general belief, fields will not have to be extended for landing nor huge catapults employed to get DC-4 into the air.
¶ Like a kangaroo's pouch, DC-4's large belly compartment will enable the plane to carry 6,500 pounds of freight. This is a delight to the airlines, for a 200-lb. transcontinental passenger brings them no more revenue than 200 pounds of air express, and mailbags eat no sandwiches.
¶ Five experts—two pilots, a flight engineer, a steward, a stewardess—will control the DC-4, and they will have at their disposal every conceivable check on their own fallibilities. There will be, for instance, eleven independent radio transmitters and receivers, among them a teletypewriter to take weather reports. Auxiliary motor generators will make DC-4 sending sets just as powerful as control sets now in use at landing fields.
¶To make passengers feel at home, there will be steam heating, air conditioning, running water, electric cooking aparatus. A dictaphone will be supplied to the executive who cannot waste time while traveling at 240 m.p.h.
"United We Fly." DC-4 is Donald Douglas' big baby, but three years ago it was a gleam in another man's eye. William A. Patterson, president of United Air Lines, is a small man, quick-moving, quick-witted. In his Chicago office his papers heap two desks. Between the desks, in a swivel chair with well-oiled casters, Mr. Patterson shuttles back & forth. What has made the papers so many and the shuttling so nervous was a bad situation and a good idea. The bad situation: the wasteful competition between U. S. airlines, particularly in independently developing expensive experimental planes, then all investing in a standard plane—first the DC-2, then the DC-3. The good idea: that U. S. airlines should use the collective knowledge of their engineers, pilots, technical and traffic advisers, eliminate competitive waste by financing a common plane.