AVIATION: Workhorses Needed

In the race to furnish a successor to the Douglas DC-3, workhorse of the airlines. Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corp. last week got off to a flying start. It pocketed an order from American Airlines for 100 of its new Model 2405, largest number of planes a single airline has ever ordered at one time. Price for the lot: $18,000,000.

The 240, first commercial transport which Convair has sold, is still in the design stage, will not be ready for delivery until 1947. It will be a short-haul, 40-passenger plane in the 300-mile-an-hour class. Unusual features: specially designed engine exhaust stacks which will provide jet assistance; passenger entrance near the nose through a door with a built-in ramp. With the 240, American Airlines hopes to make a “good approach” to 3¢-a-mile air service.

American’s order put Convair almost abreast of Baltimore’s Glenn L. Martin Co., which so far has orders for 105 of its Model 202s. Convair turned the trick by offering its faster plane (300 miles an hour v. 270 for Martin’s 202) to American for $180,000 each (v. $200,000 for the 202).

Douglas Aircraft Co. seemed to be left at the post. It has yet to take an order for its DC-8, commercial version of the Army Mixmaster, which crashed.