The Illlustrated Encyclopedia of Propeller Airliners

For the first 30 years of commercial aviation, from 1920 to 1950, all airliners had propellers. Over the next ten years, to 1960,jet airliners slowly and hesitantly penetrated the extremely conservative and ultra-cautious airline industry. But by 1960 the airlines had become so polarized around the jet that efficient and successful turboprop airliners, such as the Electra and Vanguard, lost their builders a lot of money because the customers thought them obsolete. Then, again very gradually, airline managements began to realize that those who said turboprops were efficient and burned less fuel were telling the truth. As oil prices soared, so the propeller began to make a come-back. Therefore, though mainly an account of past history, this volume ends with a buoyant industry that cannot build turboprop airliners fast enough.
Included in this book are early airliners, among which are those that carried the world's very first fare-paying passengers, and the first small sack of air-mail letters, long before World War 1. After that great war, aircraft were not only more capable but also more reliable; but travel by air was still not far removed from science fiction, and something totally outside the lives of all ordinary people. Those few who did buy airline tickets were advised to wear a stout leather coat, gloves and if possible goggles and a hat well tied-on. In a space that often resembled a small box they bumped and lurched at about the same speed as an express train - with hardly the slightest concession to comfort, and in noise of unbelievable intensity - until they either reached their destination, or landed to enquire the way, or landed in a precipitate and often disastrous manner because of engine failure…