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***image1***The Douglas C-74 Globemaster was developed during World War II to meet the Army Air Force’s need for a transport aircraft with a large payload and very long range for the global logistics network.
To simplify development and production, Douglas and the AAF built what was basically a scaled-up C-54 – a conventional, four-engine, low-wing design with tricycle landing gear. But the C-74 did have a few unique characteristics – part of the cargo compartment floor dropped down as an elevator, it had reversible propellers for short field landings and better ground maneuverability, and a sophisticated arrangement of full-span Fowler flaps to permit short takeoffs and landings.
One of the most unusual safety features on the C-74 were twin bubble canopies for the pilot and copilot that allowed a nearly unobstructed 360-degree view around the aircraft, but which gave the aircraft the appearance of having two bug eyes. While the arrangement served its purpose, it made communications and crew coordination difficult and was unpopular, so all C-74s were eventually retrofitted with a conventional cockpit.
The C-74 was meant to operate all over the world with minimum support, so it had self-contained electrical power and equipment that enabled the crew to do maintenance up to a flight, including changing engines without outside help. For in-flight problems, it had passageways in the wing that permitted the flight engineer to service and repair the engines in flight and manually lower the landing gear.
To speed the C-74’s delivery to operational units no prototypes were built, but development still took longer than expected and the first Globemaster I did not fly until just after the end of the war. At the time of its first flight, the C-74 was the largest landplane to enter production, but the decreased need for military aircraft after the war caused production to end in January 1946 after only 14 aircraft.
The C-74’s biggest contribution to the Air Force came in August 1948 when, a month after the Berlin airlift began, a single C-74 flew to Rhein-Main Air Base for service tests and began flying supplies to Berlin in “Operation Vittles,” the Berlin Airlift.
On Sept. 18, 1948 – Air Force Day – the crew flew six round trips into Berlin, hauling a total of 250,000 pounds of coal and setting a utilization record by flying 20 hours during the 24-hour effort.
But while the C-74 was a quantum improvement over the other Air Force transports, its heavy weight broke up the Berlin runways and in late September, after six weeks of flights, it returned to the U.S.
The success of the C-74 in the Berlin Airlift led the commander of the Military Air Transport Service, Air Force General William H. Tunner to say, “The lesson we’ve learned [is] that the future of military air transport is in the big aircraft…one [C-74] could do the work of three [and] our major problems would have been proportionally reduced.”
The Air Force had a vision of an even larger transport, so a C-74 was modified with a much larger fuselage and reinforced landing gear, but using the C-74 wings, tail and engines. It was the prototype for the C-124 Globemaster II, which proved to be an outstanding aircraft. Development of the C-124 proceeded relatively quickly and smoothly and it began to replace the C-74s in 1954.
