America’s Round-Engine Airliners

This book explains in detailed. well-illustrated. and easy-to-understand terms how these piston-powered engine airliners advanced rapidly. The aircraft originated with fabric-covered fuselages with wooden wings and morphed into all-metal Ford Trimotors as the world’s first true “modern airliner.” the Douglas DC-3. long-range four-engine transoceanic flying boats.

Many magnificent aircraft bridged the gap from small single-engine airliners carrying six passengers in the 1920s to large long-range. four-engine landplanes carrying 60-to-80 passengers and linking all the world’s continents by air in the 1950s. This book not only traces the technical evolution of every radial-engine powerplant used over that time span but also includes interesting and fact-filled sidebars that detail what it was like flying aboard each generation of these aircraft. In 1948. the largest radial piston engine ever produced entered airline service. the mighty 3.500-hp 28-cylinder Pratt Whitney R-4360; it is one of 12 different radial engines covered in-depth by the authors of this book.