Airliner Number 4 was a design by Norman Bel Geddes and Otto A. Koller for a 9-deck amphibious passenger aircraft intended to replace the large transatlantic liners that traveled between Europe and North America before the Second World War. It was never built.
Norman Bel Geddes was one of the first industrial designers in the United States, and is one of the pioneers of streamlining in design. He produced ambitious and futuristic projects in the 1930s for vehicles, flying cars, aircraft, and consumer goods—only some of which were realised. [1] He was in the habit of giving his staff ambitious or unusual projects when they were between client commissions such as "Get a thousand luxury lovers from New York to Paris fast. Forget the limitations." [2]
The aircraft was designed between 1929 and 1932 with the idea of showing "what the intercontinental air liner of 1940 will be like." [4] Geddes developed the overall design concept while German aeronautical engineer Otto A. Koller provided the engineering expertise as Geddes was not a trained engineer. The two had clashed over Airplane Number 1 in January 1930, after Koller had described it as "an absolute[ly] undesirable design." Koller then declined to provide performance specifications for its replacement, Airliner Number 4, which Geddes intended to include for publicity purposes in his upcoming book Horizons (Little Brown, New York, 1932). [5] Geddes devoted over ten pages of the book to the project, including a fulsome endorsement of Koller's skills as an aircraft engineer on page 111 and detailed cut-away plans of the aircraft. Although uncredited in Horizons, the striking illustrations of the aircraft may have been drawn by the young C. Stowe Myers who had his first job in Geddes's office and was tasked with creating the illustrations for the book. [6]
Designed as a V-shaped monoplane with nine decks, large capacity, viewing galleries, and public areas big enough to hold an orchestra, Geddes intended Airliner Number 4 to replace the ocean liner. [7] He wrote that, "Passengers aboard this air liner are able to move about as freely as on an ocean liner, enjoying recreations and diversions similar to those which seagoing passengers are now accustomed." [4] It would have had a wingspan of 528 feet (161 m) and a capacity of 451 passengers plus a crew of 155. Power in the design was provided by twenty 1,900 horsepower (1,400 kW) engines with six in reserve. Each of the two pontoons that supported the plane on water would hold passengers, and also accommodate three lifeboats, sufficient for all persons on board. [4] Two interior hangars would hold smaller aircraft. [8]
It was not the first design to feature a giant wing. Le Corbusier's Vers une architecture (1931 edition) had included an illustration of the "airplane of to-morrow" that featured windows along the edge of the wing like Airliner Number 4, but, unlike it, had three tail fins and the engines mounted behind the wing, rather than above. [3] Geddes described Airliner Number 4 as an "airship" in Horizons (p. 111) and compared his design with that of the largest aircraft so far built — as far as he was aware — the 48-meter wingspan Dornier Do X, which he said could carry 150 people, but not in comfort. [4] The largest-dimensioned aircraft actually built anywhere during the 1930s, the Soviet Union's six/eight-engined, 63-meter wingspan Tupolev Maksim Gorki, was not revealed until 1934.
Geddes claimed in Horizons to have had interest in the project from Chicago businessmen and that in-air refueling over Newfoundland would let the plane make the trip from Chicago to London in 42 hours, rather than the single Atlantic crossing per week of the fastest ocean liners. [9] [10] He believed that the aircraft could be built and fitted out for $9 million, and that making three Atlantic crossings a week with ticket prices comparable to those charged by ocean liners, it would pay for itself in three years by contrast with the $60 million construction cost of a liner. [9]
Airliner Number 4 would have been amphibious, but Geddes also included in Horizons plans for a floating airport near the shore of Manhattan Island, New York, and other airport designs for the time he foresaw when air travel would be as important as rail travel. [11]
Alongside Airliner Number 4, Geddes was working on designs for a Streamlined Ocean Liner, which also featured in Horizons, and for which he filed an outline patent in 1933 and a detailed patent in 1934. That design also was never built. [9]
Airliner Number 4 received widespread publicity and featured in The Detroit News in January 1933, drawn by J. L. Kraemer alongside photographs of other Geddes designs. [12]
Christopher Innes has written that the giant aircraft flown by the engineers and mechanics of Alexander Korda's 1936 film Things to Come , based on the H. G. Wells novel The Shape of Things to Come (1933), resembles Geddes' designs in Horizons. The starring role in the film was taken by Raymond Massey, who had acted in Geddes' production of Hamlet. [13] The design, or ideas circulating about large aircraft in the 1930s and 1940s, may also have influenced the design of Howard Hughes' huge 1947 Hughes H-4 Hercules "Spruce Goose", but this has not been confirmed. [9] [13] Bohn Aluminum featured an imaginary aircraft in the form of a giant wing in their advertising in 1947. In 2009, Airliner Number 4 was the subject of a 1/288 model kit by Fantastic Plastic. [14]
Papers relating to Airliner Number 4 are held in the Norman Bel Geddes Collection of the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. [7]
Futurama was an exhibit and ride at the 1939 New York World's Fair designed by Norman Bel Geddes, which presented a possible model of the world 20 years into the future (1959–1960). The installation was sponsored by the General Motors Corporation and was characterized by automated highways and vast suburbs.
An airliner is a type of aircraft for transporting passengers and air cargo. Such aircraft are most often operated by airlines. Although the definition of an airliner can vary from country to country, an airliner is typically defined as an airplane intended for carrying multiple passengers or cargo in commercial service. The largest of them are wide-body jets which are also called twin-aisle because they generally have two separate aisles running from the front to the back of the passenger cabin. These are usually used for long-haul flights between airline hubs and major cities. A smaller, more common class of airliners is the narrow-body or single-aisle. These are generally used for short to medium-distance flights with fewer passengers than their wide-body counterparts.
A flying wing is a tailless fixed-wing aircraft that has no definite fuselage, with its crew, payload, fuel, and equipment housed inside the main wing structure. A flying wing may have various small protuberances such as pods, nacelles, blisters, booms, or vertical stabilizers.
Junkers Flugzeug- und Motorenwerke AG more commonly Junkers[ˈjʊŋkɐs], was a major German aircraft and aircraft engine manufacturer. It produced some of the world's most innovative and best-known airplanes over the course of its fifty-plus year history in Dessau, Germany. It was founded there in 1895 by Hugo Junkers, initially manufacturing boilers and radiators. During World War I, and following the war, the company became famous for its pioneering all-metal aircraft. During World War II the company produced some of the most successful Luftwaffe planes, as well as piston and jet aircraft engines, albeit in the absence of its founder, who had been removed by the Nazis in 1934.
Hugo Junkers was a German aircraft engineer and aircraft designer who pioneered the design of all-metal airplanes and flying wings. His company, Junkers Flugzeug- und Motorenwerke AG, was one of the mainstays of the German aircraft industry in the years between World War I and World War II. His multi-engined, all-metal passenger- and freight planes helped establish airlines in Germany and around the world.
A jet airliner or jetliner is an airliner powered by jet engines. Airliners usually have two or four jet engines; three-engined designs were popular in the 1970s but are less common today. Airliners are commonly classified as either the large wide-body aircraft, medium narrow-body aircraft and smaller regional jet.
The Bristol Type 167 Brabazon was a large British piston-engined propeller-driven airliner designed by the Bristol Aeroplane Company to fly transatlantic routes between the UK and the United States. The type was named Brabazon after the Brabazon Committee and its chairman, Lord Brabazon of Tara, who had developed the specification to which the airliner was designed.
The Fokker F28 Fellowship is a twin-engined, short-range jet airliner designed and built by Dutch aircraft manufacturer Fokker.
Norman Bel Geddes was an American theatrical and industrial designer.
The Tupolev Tu-70 was a Soviet passenger variant of the Tu-4 bomber and designed immediately after the end of World War II. It used a number of components from Boeing B-29s that had made emergency landings in the Soviet Union after bombing Japan. It had the first pressurized fuselage in the Soviet Union and first flew on 27 November 1946. The aircraft was successfully tested, recommended for serial production, but ultimately not produced because of more pressing military orders and because Aeroflot had no requirement for such an aircraft. A military cargo aircraft version was the Tupolev Tu-75.
N.V. Koolhoven was an aircraft manufacturer based in Rotterdam, Netherlands. From its conception in 1926 to its destruction in the Blitzkrieg in May 1940, the company remained the second major Dutch aircraft manufacturer. Although many of its aircraft were as unsuccessful economically as they were brilliant from a design standpoint, the company managed to score several 'hits', amongst them the FK-58 single-seat monoplane fighter, the FK-50 twin-engine passenger transport, and the FK-41, built in England under licence by Desoutter.
A blended wing body (BWB), also known as blended body or hybrid wing body (HWB), is a fixed-wing aircraft having no clear dividing line between the wings and the main body of the craft. The aircraft has distinct wing and body structures, which are smoothly blended together with no clear dividing line. This contrasts with a flying wing, which has no distinct fuselage, and a lifting body, which has no distinct wings. A BWB design may or may not be tailless.
The Burnelli CBY-3 Loadmaster is an unconventional transport aircraft that was designed by American engineer Vincent Burnelli and built in Canada in 1944 by Canadian Car and Foundry.
The Latécoère 521 was a French six-engined double deck flying boat designed and manufactured by Pierre-Georges Latécoère. At the time of its completion, it held the distinction of being the largest aircraft to be built in France as well as one of the first large passenger aircraft capable of flying trans-Atlantic routes.
The Burnelli UB-14, also known as the Cunliffe-Owen Clyde Clipper, was a 1930s American prototype lifting-fuselage airliner designed and built by Vincent Burnelli.
The Fokker F.XXXVI was a 1930s Dutch four-engined 32-passenger airliner designed and built by Fokker. It was the largest transport designed and built by Fokker.
The Focke-Wulf A 38 Möwe was an airliner, produced in Germany in the early 1930s. It was a final development of the family of designs that commenced with the A 17 in 1927. The A 38 used the same high-mounted, cantilever wing as the A 29, but mated this to an all-new fuselage design with enclosed seating for ten passengers and three crew. Unlike earlier members of the family, the flight deck was not joined to the cabin, separated now by a lavatory and baggage compartment. The main undercarriage was strengthened and the mainwheels fitted with brakes, while the tailskid was replaced with a tailwheel. All four A 38s were originally fitted with Siemens- or Gnome et Rhône-built Bristol Jupiter engines, but in April 1933, all aircraft were refitted with Siemens Sh 20 powerplants. By mid-1934, they had been relegated to training duties.
The PWS-20 was a Polish single-engine high-wing 8 passenger airliner, built in the PWS factory and when it made its first flight in 1929 it became the first Polish-designed transport aircraft to fly.
The Streamlined Ocean Liner was a design by Norman Bel Geddes for a streamlined steam-powered ocean liner. The shape was compared by Pathé to that of a porpoise, blunt at the front and tapered at the rear. It first appeared in Geddes' 1932 book Horizons and an outline patent was filed in 1933 with a detailed patent following in 1934. An offer was made for the rights to the design in the late 1930s, which Geddes refused, as he still hoped to sell it to an American shipbuilder, but the ship was never built.
Ernest de Weerth was a Paris-born set and costume designer for the American theatre.