Aviation Traders Carvair

The Aviation Traders ATL-98 Carvair is a retired air ferry conversion developed by Freddie Laker's Aviation Traders (Engineering) Limited (ATL). Based on the Douglas DC-4, it has a capacity of 22 passengers in a rear cabin, and five cars loaded in at the front. It is powered by four radial engines.

Design and development

Freddie Laker's idea to convert surplus examples of the Douglas DC-4 and its military counterpart the C-54 Skymaster to carry cars was a relatively inexpensive solution to develop a successor to the rapidly aging and increasingly inadequate Bristol 170 Freighter, the car ferry airlines' mainstay since the late 1940s.

The Bristol Freighter's main drawback was its limited car payload: even the "long-nosed" Mark 32 was able to accommodate only three cars, in addition to 20 passengers. This made carrying cars by air a very risky business: if a booked car did not arrive for the flight, the one-third cut in payload made the flight unprofitable. This was made worse by the increasing average length of British cars during the 1950s: the average UK car in 1959 was longer than in 1950. The extreme seasonality of the car ferry business furthermore resulted in poor aircraft utilization outside peak periods. Moreover, repeated takeoffs and landings on short cross-Channel flights, in turbulent air at lower altitudes with tight turnarounds of as little as 20 minutes, made the aircraft prone to structural fatigue problems, necessitating rigorous and costly modification programmes, further increasing the type's operating costs on low-yield routes. In addition, the DC-4's lack of pressurisation was suitable for low-altitude cross-Channel flights, making the proposed structural conversion straightforward. The result was a new aircraft christened Carvair (derived from car-via-air).

thumb|A publicity photo of a vintage 1897 Daimler car being loaded via scissor-lift onto a Carvair, 1966

Initially, it was thought that second-hand, pressurised Douglas DC-6 and Douglas DC-7 airframes could be converted into larger, "second generation" Carvairs within 15 years of the original DC-4-based Carvair's entry into service.

The conversion of the original DC-4 entailed replacing the forward fuselage with one longer, with a flight deck raised into a bulbous "hump" like the later Boeing 747 jet, to allow a sideways-hinged nose door. It also required more powerful wheel brakes and an enlarged tail, often thought to be a Douglas DC-7 unit, but actually a completely new design. The engines, four Pratt & Whitney R-2000 Twin Wasps, were unchanged.

The prototype conversion first flew on 21 June 1961. Twenty-one Carvairs were produced in the UK, with production of aircraft 1, 11 and 21 at Southend Airport and the others at Stansted Airport. The final three aircraft were delivered to Australia's Ansett-ANA, which supplied its own DC-4s to ATL for conversion, unlike the previous 18 aircraft that were purchased by ATL and either sold on or transferred to associate company British United Air Ferries (BUAF). One of the two aircraft still flying in June 2007 was an ex-Ansett airframe. A second Ansett aircraft was abandoned at Phnom Penh in 1975. The first flight of the last conversion, number 21, for Ansett, was on 12 July 1968.

Basic price for a Carvair newly converted from a C-54 airframe (two of the three Ansett airframes supplied were of the DC-4 variant) in 1960 was £150,000, equivalent to £ million today.

Operational history

thumb|Aviation Traders ATL-98 Carvair, British United (BUA), 1967

The Carvair was used by Aer Lingus, BUA/BUAF and BAF among others, and was used in Congo-Kinshasa during 1962–1963, under contract to the United Nations. Aircraft for Aer Lingus were quickly convertible between 55 seats, and 22 seats with five cars. Some aircraft were pure freighters with only nine seats. One aircraft had 55 high-density seats and room for three cars. BAF was the last operator in Europe of the aircraft, keeping them flying into the 1970s.

thumb|right|[[Aviation Traders ATL-98 Carvair of Nationwide Air at Christchurch, New Zealand in 1977]]

Former operators

thumb|A Rolls-Royce being loaded onto an Aer Lingus Carvair, at Liverpool 19 May 1963

thumb|ATL-8 Carvair transport , Dallas, Texas, 1979

;

Ansett Australia
SF Air

;

Interocean Airways

;

Tunis Air

;

British United Air Ferries and successor British Air Ferries (BAF)
Channel Air Bridge

;

Falcon Airways
Karachi, Pakistan 1967
Twin Falls, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada 1968
Miami, Florida, United States 1969
Le Touquet, France 1971
Venetie, Alaska, United States 1997
Griffin, Georgia, United States 1997
McGrath, Alaska, United States 2007

Surviving aircraft

thumb|right|9J-PAA seen at [[Rand Airport, South Africa on 18 August 2011]]

9J-PAA (the 21st and final Carvair built) is in South Africa with Phoebus Apollo Aviation. Formerly registered in Zambia, the aircraft is currently on display at Rand Airport, where it sits near other uncommon aircraft such as the Boeing 747SP. Although removed from the Zambian register, the owner planned to return it to the skies for air shows.
N89FA "Miss 1944" (the 9th Carvair) is based in Gainesville, Texas at KGLE Gainesville Municipal Airport. The aircraft is still complete as of April 2024, and has been seen receiving periodic maintenance, but there is no specific evidence that she has flown in recent years. In 2005 this aircraft appeared at the World Free Fall Convention, Rantoul, Illinois, where it took over 100 skydivers into the air in one flight.

Specifications

Notable appearances in media

British United Carvairs made an appearance in the 1964 James Bond movie Goldfinger as Auric Goldfinger and bodyguard Oddjob boarded G-ASDC bound for Switzerland while Goldfinger's Rolls-Royce Phantom was being loaded through the Carvair's nose. In the 1967 TV series The Prisoner in the episode "The Chimes of Big Ben", the plane is seen being loaded through the nose, then taking off and landing again. A Carvair serves as Charlie Marshall's plane in the John Le Carre novel The Honourable Schoolboy.

Notes

References

(2nd printing in 2015)
(Airliner World online)

External links

Operators’ reference drawing
Commercial Aircraft of the World Aviation Traders ATL-98 Carvair
Aviation Traders Ltd.
The Aviation Traders ATL-98 Carvair
Aviation Traders Carvair
DC-4 to Carvair, c/n 42994 history by Gil White
ATL.98 Carvair N898AT in final stages of restoration
Douglas DC-4-1009, Carvair ATL-98 Registration: N898AT
30 May 2007: Carvair N898AT Wrecked
ASN Aviation Safety Database Aviation Traders ATL-98 Carvair
Carvair in Goldfinger