1950's TAA/NAA etc. Dave McQueen?

[Tom/CalClassic]

Hi all,

Dave, I was wondering what kind of operation that North American/Trans American flew in the 1950's.

If you look at this 1956 TAA timetable:



You can see that they flew across the USA. I've assumed that flights #10/20/30/40 were DC-6B's and the rest are DC-4's, due to flight times, etc.

Now what planes would have flown these schedules? How many airlines did they have flying these routes? How often would they typically fly?

Thanks,

[Tom/CalClassic]

This reference says they were "daily". But does that mean each of these routes were daily, or they added up to 7 trips per week?

nasm.si.edu/americabyair/heyday/heyday03.cfm

[dave mcqueen]

Tom,

You know Rich Boehringer would be the one to ask about that as he used to fly across the country on them as a child. I think he had an aunt that was a flight attendant on that airline as well. By the time I was getting familiar with the nonscheduled world around 1959 TAA had gone out of business.

The "supplemental" term replacing "nonscheduled" the CAB introduced was put into effect in January, 1959. I recall an article that I probably no longer have in American Aviation magazine that had a list of 25 of those non-sked carriers deemed fit by the CAB to continue operating as Supplemental carriers. The nonskeds safety record was dreadful and particularly after the Cal Poly football team crash (Arctic Pacific C46) matters came to a head. You likely recall that accident. TAA may not have made the cut because they skirted around the letter of the law.

I agree with you on the assumption of equipment type used although the book Forgotten Flights says they used DC6s that were sold to Eastern Airlines and Reeve Aleution (who retained the TAA paint scheme) when they went belly up or were forced to .

Nonskeds were limited to 12 flights per month between 2 points in the US. But TAA's owner Stanley Weiss got around this by taking over as many as 6 other airlines so that taken together he could offer daily service between destinations. After North American Airlines was put out of business Trans American Airlines was started up by Weiss in 1957 doing as he done before but by the end of 1958 it was gone too. The North American Airlines Agency continued to operate charter ops with one of its carriers - Twentieth Century Airlines until 1963.

Sorry I don't know more about the subject.
Nice Timetable

[Tom/CalClassic]

Thanks Dave. I'll just schedule them as best I can.