Pan American-Grace Airways Douglas DC-7B  N51244                  (c/n  45244)

                                       

                                           How times have changed!   Here DC-7B N51244 of the El Inter Americano service is providing
                                           shade from the hot Miami sun in the summer of 1957.   It is difficult to see whether the spectators
                                           are waiting to board or are merely seeing passengers off.  In any event a group of such bystanders
                                           standing underneath an international airliner today would be sufficient to not only throw the TSA
                                           personnel into a state of apoplexy but would almost certainly close down the airport for hours! 
                                           This image tends to give scale to the size of the DC-7B which, although no widebody, was a large
                                           aircraft by the standards of the day, accommodating as it did, some 120 passengers.  Note the neat
                                           installation of the massive Wright R-3350 Turbo-Compound radial engines developing some 3250 h.p.
                                          each.  N51244 was sold by Panagra in 1965 and was broken up in 1974.   Seen below is a line
                                          drawing by John Stroud which appeared in a booklet published by The Aviation Service of The British
                                           Petroleum Company Limited for IATA in 1958.    This illustrates well the color scheme borne by the
                                           airline in the 1950s.