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During the late 1930s, following a request from United Air Lines, Douglas Aircraft of Santa Monica, California, developed a large-capacity, long-range, pressurized, four-engine airliner. The DC-4E prototype first flew in 1938. It featured a tripletail and a nose wheel, unique to large passenger aircraft at that time. Deemed too complicated, the design was changed to a smaller, unpressurized airliner with a single tail, which became the DC-4. World War II circumvented its civilian use, and most were appropriated for use as C-54 Skymaster military transports. After the war, Douglas converted many back to airliners, while continuing production until 1947. By late 1945, Pan American World Airways, realizing the superiority of the DC-4 over the Boeing 314 flying boat, began operating the airliner on transpacific routes, and by 1948, on transatlantic routes to Europe. With its long range and capacity of up to eighty-six passengers, the airliner was crucial to advancing trans-ocean commercial aviation in the immediate postwar era. See "Aviation Evolutions: The Jim Lund 1:72 Scale Model Airplane Collection", which features more than 200 models, on display, pre-security, in the Aviation Museum. http://bit.ly/AviationEvolutions This image was posted on December 26, 2018.

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This post mentions the following things involved with the SFO Museum collection:

Pan American Airways. It is related to Pan American World Airways (the company) .