History

The end of WWII and the transition of the international community to normal daily life gave dramatic impetus to the development of tourism and international travel, and air transportation was bound to play an important role in it. If a trip in an aircraft was possible only for a narrow section of society before the war, in other words for the rich, now the main aim was mass transportation, with the best possible comfort and convenience during journeys.

The leading airlines of the U.S., such as TWA and Pan Am, had long competed for the right to provide the maximum number of flights within the country, and in the postwar years the need to provide a completely new kind of airline came to the fore; one offering intercontinental travel between America and Europe. TWA made a bid for a new aircraft from the Lockheed company, the famous Constellation. Pan Am, which cooperated for a long time with the Douglas company, back in 1946 received the first Douglas DC-6, which for several years afterwards was the flagship of the company.

Determined to concede nothing to its competitors, Pan Am ordered an improved version of Douglas DC-6, which appeared in May of 1953 and was known as the DC-7. The aircraft greatly resembled its predecessor, though it featured a number of innovations, still not commonplace in civilian aircraft, such as radar.

Earlier versions of the DC-7 could stay up in the air for up to 8 hours, which made it possible to make flights easily from one coast of America to the other, but they were still incapable of intercontinental flight, and only the appearance of the DC-7C variant in 1956, named 'Seven Seas', finally allowed regular flights from the majority of American cities to European capitals. In comparison with its predecessors the DC-7C was 40 inches (1.02m) longer, making possible the installation of an additional number of seats in the cabin. Some European airlines were interested in this airplane such as SAS in Scandinavia, and also the Japanese JAL; and for some period of time it was operated by the leading Dutch carrier KLM.

The success of the DC-7C was loud, but brief. The era of jet aviation was coming. The appearance of the epochal Boeing 707 quickly pushed all other types of aircraft with reciprocating engines into the background. Although absolutely not conceding anything to the newcomer in comfort, they could not compete with it in speed, and soon they began to be converted into cargo planes, planes for firefighting, and some machines were even taken on by the U.S. military for special duties. In spite of a very short period of service in its main role, some DC-7 types could still be seen in the sky even at the end of the twentieth century when they continued to be operated in various African countries.

Kit Contents

105 Plastic pcs.
1 decal profile for a restored DC 7C.
8 page instruction booklet.
1 colour sheet for decal appliations.

There is flash on the spine and at the rear trailing edges of the wing union on the fuselage. There is also a distortion on one of the wing tip lower surfaces. I believe this to be a sprue ejection from the mold issue. Though easily fixed by the modeler it may be something of a regular issue / fingerprint with this mold. Cockpit windshield needs to be replaced with cut sections of sheet plastic or a sharp vacuformed version. More than an average clean up is needed.

Decals

DC-7C N749PA, Pan American Airways 1958. These markings are based on an aircraft nicknamed "The 7 Seas." Pan American World Airways DC-7C Seven Seas Seven Seas in the classic Pan American delivery scheme, featuring the winged world emblem on the fuselage.

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