MAC Forum

It is no surprise that toy companies who were surviving the great depression would be flexible with their designs and production. A case in point is the Wyandotte Super Mainliner which was based on the Douglas DC-4E (Experimental). The actual airplane had some significant features that are to ignore such as the three fins and the parallel cabin windows for sitting areas and sleeping berths. Wyandotte produced a "Super Mainliner" (United Air Lines name) that was fairly faithful to the design and was marked as such during Wyandotte production. The picture below shows a sample unit that I recently restored (turquoise/nickle) and another that mated the tri-tail empennage and wing assembly (white/red) but used the "Defence Bomber" (DB) fuselage. Of interest is that the two fuselages are the same except: (1) There is a tail wheel strut and (2) added/subracted windows on the "Defence Bomber" fuselage. This induces these questions...
A) Did the second, DB version receive the complete decal/sticker compliment of "United Airlines" and "Super Mainliner" as its brethren?
B) Did the DB Mainliner version produced with the single Clipper enpennage receive any decals/stickers and what were they?
C) Did those DB fuselages used on the twin engine Defence Bomber have the cutouts for the nose gear?
D) Was there ever a military-ish version of the 4-engined airliner with any national markings?

Inquiring minds want to know...
Regards, Tom

I have a red/blue toy with remnants of gold decals that read "Souvenir of National Air Races" probably 1940 or so.

The "Defense Bomber" could have been the Capelis XC-12, an airplane I only learned about last year.

viewtopic.php?f=19&t=55

Here is a Canadian version of the DC-4E, below. More likely, it is the DC-4M, but the wings are easily recognizable. I actually saw this at a flea market once. It came in a plain brown box. Despite the resemblance to Wyandotte, the brand name was Lincoln, I think.

And while we are on that topic, last week, I was watching a TV show with great shots of the Canadian airline "Buffalo Airways" DC-4 (C-FIQM) used as a test launcher, trying to re-create the Dam Busters bombs.

Ah yes, the venerable movie star, the Capelis XC-12. For an airplane that was pretty much a failure aerodynamically, it sure did get in front of the public via the silver screen. As for that Trans-Canada pressed steel airplane, is that the one on ebay a few months back? It is a very nice airplane for being so rare. On your Defense Bomber, would you post some top view shots of the "National Air Races" sticker/decal? It will make a nice research project for some friends who research the Cleveland Air Races.

Thanks, Tom