Martin -
 
no USAF officer, but a West Berlin child of the great Berlin Airlift of 1948-49
und thus a life long aviation & US lover:
 
a C54 Skymaster wdn't have had the necessary range. I'm pretty sure that at that
time there were only one or two types of aircraft really capable of doing the
atlantic non-stop, early versions of the Lockheed Conny (L149) or much more
likely the Boeing B337 ("Stratocruiser" I think that ship's name was. Somehow
THAT sounds familiar to me in EP context. Maybe that either Cornell or Carpenter
have details about it in their books or it was in the EP film "American Odyssey"
where Mary tells about how enormously excited EP was on this his very first
flight. I cd check but have no time right now. Maybe you can or let me know so I
wd go at it in a couple of days
 
BTW, I'd enjoy to talk aviation with you or yr son.
 
alex