Airliner Number 4

Norman Bel Geddes was one of the first industrial designers in the United States, and is one of the pioneers of streamlining in design. He produced ambitious and futuristic projects in the 1930s for vehicles, flying cars, aircraft, and consumer goods—only some of which were realised.^[1] He was in the habit of giving his staff ambitious or unusual projects when they were between client commissions such as "Get a thousand luxury lovers from New York to Paris fast. Forget the limitations."^[2]

The aircraft was designed between 1929 and 1932 with the idea of showing "what the intercontinental air liner of 1940 will be like."^[4] Geddes developed the overall design concept while German aeronautical engineer Otto A. Koller provided the engineering expertise as Geddes was not a trained engineer. The two had clashed over Airplane Number 1 in January 1930, after Koller had described it as "an absolute[ly] undesirable design." Koller then declined to provide performance specifications for its replacement, Airliner Number 4, which Geddes intended to include for publicity purposes in his upcoming book Horizons (Little Brown, New York, 1932).^[5] Geddes devoted over ten pages of the book to the project, including a fulsome endorsement of Koller's skills as an aircraft engineer on page 111 and detailed cut-away plans of the aircraft. Although uncredited in Horizons, the striking illustrations of the aircraft may have been drawn by the young C. Stowe Myers who had his first job in Geddes's office and was tasked with creating the illustrations for the book.^[6]

Designed as a V-shaped monoplane with nine decks, large capacity, viewing galleries, and public areas big enough to hold an orchestra, Geddes intended Airliner Number 4 to replace the ocean liner.^[7] He wrote that, "Passengers aboard this air liner are able to move about as freely as on an ocean liner, enjoying recreations and diversions similar to those which seagoing passengers are now accustomed."^[4] It would have had a wingspan of 528 feet (161 m) and a capacity of 451 passengers plus a crew of 155. Power in the design was provided by twenty 1,900 horsepower (1,400 kW) engines with six in reserve. Each of the two pontoons that supported the plane on water would hold passengers, and also accommodate three lifeboats, sufficient for all persons on board.^[4] Two interior hangars would hold smaller aircraft.^[8]

It was not the first design to feature a giant wing. Le Corbusier's Vers une architecture (1931 edition) had included an illustration of the "airplane of to-morrow" that featured windows along the edge of the wing like Airliner Number 4, but, unlike it, had three tail fins and the engines mounted behind the wing, rather than above.^[3] Geddes described Airliner Number 4 as an "airship" in Horizons (p. 111) and compared his design with that of the largest aircraft so far built — as far as he was aware — the 48-meter wingspan Dornier Do X, which he said could carry 150 people, but not in comfort.^[4] The largest-dimensioned aircraft actually built anywhere during the 1930s, the Soviet Union's six/eight-engined, 63-meter wingspan Tupolev Maksim Gorki, was not revealed until 1934.