W
eeks of ‘proving’ flights were
ordered by the boss of United
Airlines when the carrier
received its first examples of
the new Douglas propliner. The airline’s
long-serving President, William A Patterson,
decreed that its first three DC-6s should
fly without passengers to iron out potential
problems and familiarise the crew with the
aircraft. It was a highly unusual decision
that can only be attributed to Patterson’s
innate sense of caution when introducing a
new aircraft.
The carrier took delivery of its first
example on November 24, 1946, but the
inaugural fee-paying service was not until
April 27, 1947. United went on to eventually
operate 95 examples.
They were used at the outset to launch
new routes and provide non-stop flights on
some of the busier services. By April 1948
it had eight DC-6s, primarily on coast-to-
coast journeys, but also used on the San
Francisco-Hawaii route.
The DC-6s held a big advantage in being
pressurised enabling them to fly over the
Rockies and Sierra Nevada, plus abovethe worst of the weather. They were also
faster than the DC-4s they were replacing,
reducing the coast-to-coast flight times
between Boston and New York to Los
Angeles and San Francisco to ten hours,
with a stop in Lincoln, Nebraska. The
Lockheed L-049 Constellation took 11 hours
and the DC-4, 14 hours.
United marketed the DC-6 as the
Mainliner 300 in the days when travelling by
air aimed to provide a similar standard of
service to travelling by sea. The DC-3s were
called Mainliner 170s and the DC-4s as
Mainliner 230s, reflecting the cruising speed
in miles per hour of each aircraft.
Patterson, was fastidious about cabin
comfort, introducing wider seats and
additional legroom. United limited the
number of passengers to 50 for daytime
services while some aircraft had 24 sleeper-
type seats for night-time operations. For
daytime operations the fuselage was divided
into two, with a forward cabin seating 36,
then a cloakroom and buffet and a further 14
seats behind. Additionally, at the end of the
aft cabin was a lounge with seating for six
people. As passenger demand increasedthe cabin configurations were altered
accordingly and more seats were offered, but
legroom was maintained at previous levels.
United operated three types of DC-6s –
48 of the original model, plus seven freight-
only DC-6A models. When the DC-6B was
introduced, United ordered 43 of them. The
B model had the more powerful Pratt &
Whitney R-2800 engines, a fuselage stretch
of 5ft (1.5m) plus improved fuel capacity of
5,512-US gal versus 4,722-US gal on the
original version which gave the aircraft a
significant improvement in range. The larger
DC-6B carried 84 passengers in United
service. This variant had the best operating
economics of any large piston airliner of its
time. In fact Douglas sold more DC-6Bs
than any other civil airliner in the DC-4 to
DC-7C series.
Between 1953 and 1970 United offered
men-only flights between New York and
Chicago. Neither women (with the exception
of the flight attendants) or children were
permitted to fly. Departures were from both
cities at 5pm, Sunday to Friday, for the 3½-
hour journey.
They were pitched to businesshttp://www.aviation-news.co.uk 49Aircraft N37550 Mainliner Omaha taxiing for departure at Chicago O’Hare. Jon Proctor CollectionTaken at San Diego, DC-6B N90961 wears the colours of both United and Continental during a period in the 1950s when the companies operated
interchange services. The San Diego flight would have been over a sector normally flown by United. Jon Proctor48-51_prop_unitedDC.mfDC.mfDC.indd 49 05/02/2018 14:15