United Air Lines Douglas DC-3

​N19934, Late 1950s, by Bill Larkins via Ed Coates Collection. By the late 1950s most of United's passenger carrying DC-3s had been replaced by Convairs, and hence many of them were converted to Cargoliners.  This nice shot of "Cargoliner Chicago" by Bill Larkins was taken at Oakland when minuscule registration numbers painted on the fin were in vogue.  It illustrates the white-topped livery then in use by the airline.  This aircraft was originally built to a Northwest Airlines order, but WW II intervened and it was diverted on the production line to become a C-53C-DO (43-2023) for the USAAF.  United acquired it in 1949 as a freighter. It went to the Chrysler Corporation in 1954 (as N81R) and was used to haul automobile parts around the country.