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Aircraft – Douglas DC-7C
Northwest’s objectives for the back half of the 1950s were to re-establish fleet standardization and improvement, following the operational fiasco of the Martin 202 deployment and withdrawal and the resulting lease-ins of increasingly obsolete DC-3 and DC-4 airframes to cover the schedule, as well as the ill-advised acquisition of a small fleet of Lockheed Constellations to cover Pacific services. Northwest’s Stratocruisers, while luxurious, were also expensive to maintain and operate and needed to go.
NWA had leased DC-6 equipment in 1953 and found the type to their liking, building up an owned fleet through the 1950s to serve as its multi-stop workhorse that would replace the DC-3 and DC-4 for good. Douglas’ sales team’s job was made easy when they came to pitch its bigger brother DC-7; specifically the DC-7C long-range version which was being well-used by carriers such as SAS, Braniff, and Pan Am on their signature international services.
Northwest would take delivery of 17 frames in 1957-58, using them for flagship service to Asia as well as high-capacity domestic flights. Seven of the fleet would be the -7CF version which could also handle air freight – a growing and lucrative business for NWA. Three aircraft would be lost, and about half the fleet would be phased out in the early 1960s as DC-8 jetliners took over their role across the North Pacific. The last two frames would not be retired until 1968, Northwest’s last piston-engine equipment relegated to serving the ‘milk run’ through North Dakota and Montana.
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