Design and Development
Canadair Aircraft Ltd. took over the Canadian Vickers Ltd. operations on 11 November 1944. Besides the existing Consolidated PBY Canso flying patrol boats in production, a development contract to produce a new variant of the Douglas DC-4 transport, was still in effect. The new Canadair DC-4M powered by Rolls-Royce Merlin engines emerged in 1946 as the "North Star." More than just an engine swap, the North Star had the Douglas DC-6 nose, landing gear and fuselage shortened by 80 in (2 metres), DC-4 empennage, rear fuselage, flaps and wing tips, C-54 middle fuselage sections, wing centre and outer wing panel, cabin pressurisation, a standardized cockpit layout and a different electrical system.
Canadair built 71 examples under the designations: North Star, DC-4M, C-4 and C-5. With the exception of the single C-5 (which had Pratt & Whitney R-2800 engines, as fitted to the Douglas DC-6), these variants were all powered by Rolls-Royce Merlin engines and 51 of the production examples were pressurized.
Read more about this topic: Canadair North Star
Famous quotes containing the words design and/or development:
“With wonderful art he grinds into paint for his picture all his moods and experiences, so that all his forces may be brought to the encounter. Apparently writing without a particular design or responsibility, setting down his soliloquies from time to time, taking advantage of all his humors, when at length the hour comes to declare himself, he puts down in plain English, without quotation marks, what he, Thomas Carlyle, is ready to defend in the face of the world.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“And then ... he flung open the door of my compartment, and ushered in “Ma young and lovely lady!” I muttered to myself with some bitterness. “And this is, of course, the opening scene of Vol. I. She is the Heroine. And I am one of those subordinate characters that only turn up when needed for the development of her destiny, and whose final appearance is outside the church, waiting to greet the Happy Pair!””
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)