Post by Bernard on Aug 22, 2024 19:40:27 GMT
The booming German export economy was reason enough for Lufthansa to specialize in the transport of freight shipments early on. After modest beginnings in 1955 with a total of 550 tons transported, ten years later Lufthansa aircraft were already carrying more than 56,000 tons of freight. This placed Lufthansa in sixth place in a global comparison of airlines. The airline even took fifth place on the lucrative and therefore highly competitive North Atlantic.
Soon the cargo holds of the passenger planes were no longer sufficient to meet the high demand. Therefore, in the winter of 1957, Lufthansa chartered a Douglas C-54 freighter from Transocean Air Lines for use between the Federal Republic of Germany and the USA.
Jens B. Kristensen released some years ago the repaint of the DC-4.
After two years, Lufthansa exchanged the C-54, which was painted in its own colors, for a Lockheed L-1049H "Super Constellation" freighter that was also rented.
That's Garry Harper's repaint.
In order to be able to fill the larger Constellation on the New York route, an internal German feeder service was set up with our own Douglas DC-3 freight aircraft and a rented Curtiss C-46.
The amount of freight transported by Lufthansa on the North Atlantic recently increased by a third. Lufthansa also used a chartered Vickers “Viking” freighter to London and later Copenhagen on intra-European routes.
Interesting what Kristensen wrote in his readme:
Soon after re-start in 1955, Lufthansa had the requirement for cargo services. Inside Europe, they used their own DC3 (C47) and Vickers Viking. Additionally, a fleet of 10 Curtiss C46 was leased from Capitol Airlines. For transatlantic cargo services, Lufthansa used several DC4 / C54. It is often claimed, they used only one, but in fact there were three. Two of them were wet leased from Transocean (TALOA) and flown in Lufthansa colours. Pictures show a C54G and a DC4-1009, which corresponds with information on former TALOA websites. All of them were mainly flown on Lufthansa's routes across the North Atlantic. They were not painted in the Lufthansa shops and thus slightly different in paint schemes, which varied anyway. In the early years, Lufthansa used a lighter blue, changing to a darker colour during the 1960ies.
The DC4 / C54 were mainly flown on LH 40 outbound and LH 41 inbound between Frankfurt and (nominally) New York, in fact Bradley, Connecticut. Depending on the winds, they landed at Gander, Keflavik, Shannon or Prestwick for refuelling, with a scheduled stop at Manchester, UK. Some of the Captains were quite well known, like Rodney Stich. Earnest K. Gann, author of "Fate is the Hunter", "The High and the Mighty" may have flown them as well.
Bernard
