Piedmont Airlines Douglas DC-3-367   N19948                    (c/n  3287)

                                                

                                                     By the early 1950s it became popular, almost mandatory one might say, to paint the tops of
                                                     airliners white.  Ostensibly to reflect the rays of the sun, I often wonder just how really effective
                                                     the ploy was.  Some airlines, notably American Airlines, never did bother.  Anyway, N19948
                                                     was a 'true' original DC-3 (not a converted C-47A) and had originally been built to a Northeast
                                                     Airlines order in 1941 but not delivered.   It was to have been NC33622 but was diverted instead
                                                     to Trans Continental & Western Air (TWA) who re-registered it within their own series as NC1951
                                                     (Fleet No 392).  It was then impressed into military service as a C-48C serial 44-52991  (There
                                                     is some conjecture that TWA might never have actually operated it in the early war years).  Before
                                                     the end of WW II it appears to have been civilianized for United Airlines as 'Mainliner  Oakland' and
                                                     registered NC19948.  Piedmont acquired it in 1947 and re-registered it N40V some years later. It
                                                     was withdrawn from use in the 1960s.