In the post-war glow of the late 1940s, Pan Am shocked the world with news that it had placed an order for a truly insane aircraft - taller than a five-story building and with six propeller engines, it could carry an unimaginable amount of people in first class, across two decks from both edges of the Atlantic ocean
but this early jumbo airline would never actually make it off the production line, and its prototype would end up lost in the desert.
This is the story of the never build, Convair Model 37
After the end of world war two, the US military understood the need for rapid troop transportation around the world, and that aircraft provide the ideal solution over ships. Thus they contracted convair to design a heavy cargo aircraft that would become the largest piston-engined transport ever built.
Conviar started with its other large aircraft at the time, the B-36 pacemaker, and took its wings and controls for this never version dubbed the XC-99. It would have a cpacity to transport 400 fully equipped troops across the Atlantic at a moments notice, or delivery aid to europe especially for those cities isolated by hostile forces.
Incredibly Convair managed to build a service prototype, that took to the skies in 1947 and would operate for the US airforce as an essential cargo lift in the Korean war - setting several records in cargo capacity and flight times as it did so, putting the design, and its team on the map.
But the engineers who came up with the xc-99 had much grander plans than a simple military transport... they knew they could change the future of air travel forever.
this is what they came up with.
The Convair Model 37 was a gigantic plane. It had a length of 182 ft 6 in (55.63 m) and a wingspan of 230 ft 0 in (70.10 m), which is one meter shorter than the folding wingspan of the Boeing 777X. It was tall too, coming in at 57 ft 6 in (17.53 m).
With its five cockpit crew and five relief crew members - for a total of ten on the flight deck, it would be able to transport 400 troops in a military configuration, 100,000 lb (45,000 kg) cargo if a cargo carrier, or 204 passengers in the very best luxury of the era.
If economy class had been invented back then, it is likely we would have seen 400-500 passengers per flight. Which would have been low key incredible for the era.
It was powered by six Pratt & Whitney R-4,3,60-41, Wasp Major 28-cylinder, air-cooled radial piston engines, that could push out 3,500 hp (2,600 kW) each.
With a fuel capacity of 19,112 US gal (72,350 liters), it could fly a total range of ,4,200 miles or 6,800 km with a 10,000 lb (4,500 kg) payload, putting it well within reach of European cities with a single refueling stop.
It did however, only fly at a maximum speed of 307 mph (494 km/h), which is just over half the speed of modern jetliners today. So clearly it would have taken a while for passengers to make the transatlantic hop. Unlike the military version, the civil version wouldn't have the complicated radar nose but instead would have something for lack of a better world, elegant.
Launching this design to much fanfair, 15 orders were quickly snapped up by then airline jugganaught Panam, who sought to use this beast of an aircraft to link europe with north america. They claimed that 11 of these aircraft would transport 440,000 passengers per year between london and new york. It advertised that the trip would take only 9 hours, and that it would boast several lounges and full bathrooms across two decks. Fancy
So if this aircraft was going to bring a new age of luxury trans-Atlantic travel to the massess, why was it never built?
There are several reasons why the model 37 never graced our skies and didn't become the backbone of airline operations.
lets talk about those engines - the truth is that they were deemed far too insufficent for the task at hand of powering this enourmous aircraft.
Also, there was a general feeling at the time that the plane was simply too big.
Into the jet age, likely it would have become a cargo carrier and eventually used for special operations like fire fighting, where its huge capacity and slower speed would have made it idea for creating vast fire breaks.
But its future today, just like the single prototype ordered the us airforce that was built and retired in 1957, would be rusty away in the middle of the sunny mojave desert. The military determined that it had no need for such a large long-range transport at the time, and the arrival of the jet engine only a few short years later made the idea of a six-engine monster plane propositus.
You can find the original XC-99 cut up to peices in a"boneyard" at Davis Monthan outside of Tuscon, there were plans to perseve it at the museum, but such a huge fuslage is hard to keep together, and like many other never built projects it has now been put to rest only to dream of a future that never was.
