North American Airlines  Douglas DC-4  N37477                 (c/n 18333)

                                       

                                        This North American Airlines, of course, has no relation to the company of the same name
                                        founded in 1989.    N37477 was an ex Delta Air Lines DC-4, acquired by Stanley Weiss'
                                        North American in 1954.  This one was actually registered to North American when Bill
                                        Larkins took the above shot at Oakland in July 1953 (rather than to one of the other six
                                        airlines in the syndicate), although was transferred to Trans-American Airlines and Twentieth
                                        Century later on.   It is wearing the livery adopted in the mid 1950s, rather than the earlier
                                         'Aircoach": or "The North American" schemes favored in the late 1940 and early 50s. When
                                        NAA ceased scheduled operations it went to Independent Air Transport (one of the U.K.'s
                                        'non-skeds') in 1958 as G-APNH.     It wound up as an ATL-98 Carvair for British United
                                        Air Ferries a couple of years later.    It was written off at Paris' Le Touquet Airport on 18
                                        March 1971 when the nose wheel collapsed touching down in a severe cross wind.