The Convair CV-240 was a short to medium range aircraft, first flying on 16 March 1947. Powered by a pair of Pratt & Whitney Double Wasp engines, it featured a pressurised cabin and seating for 40 passengers. It entered service with American Airlines in early 1948.
Improvements came with the CV-340, first flying on 5 October 1951, featuring a lengthened fuselage to seat 44 passengers, longer wings and more powerful engines. Ultimately the CV-440 arrived from 1954 with seating for up to 52 people. With a range of up to 1,900 kilometres (1,200 miles), the Convair Liners proved popular around the world.
Convair 240, 340 and 440 Video
Following on from the last video on the Canadair CL-44, this time we head down to the USA for a look at the Convair CV-240 family of aircraft. This colour promotional film from 1955 produced by the manufacturer runs for just over 17 minutes.
It follows the aircraft in order, so it begins with the 240, then moves on to the 340 and the 440 Metropolitan. Various features are highlighted and there’s plenty of air to air footage, including single engine take-off and flying.
From about 6 minutes and 12 seconds in, we get a look at the production line, followed by a peek into the cockpit from 8 minutes and 5 seconds. Military versions are then covered from ten minutes onwards.
It’s a very nicely done production, showing just about everything you’d want to see. Many airlines are featured, such as Braniff, American Airlines, Sabena, Swissair and more.
Overall Thoughts
There were 1,181 aircraft produced between 1947 and 1954. Major operators included American Airlines, Western Airlines, Continental Airlines, Pan American, Lufthansa, KLM, Swissair, Sabena, United, Braniff, Continental, Northeast and others.
Today you would be hard pressed to find one to fly in, but there are severaal around the world in museums to visit. Have you ever flown on one of the Convair 240, 340 or 440s? What was that like? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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Featured image by Christian Volpati on Airlinefan.com via Wikimedia Commons.
I used to fly Allegheny Airlines many times between PSB (Phillipsburg, PA also known as Black Moshannon Airport and EWR when I went to Penn State University. (Now State College has it’s own airport.)
I flew on 440’s and 580’s with the Electra engines.
On one of the 580 flights, looking out at the top of the wing when the Sun hit it you could see the name, Braniff which was scratched off, but you could still see it.
Sounds like you’re very familiar with the aircraft then. Black Moshannon Airport is some name!! I’d never heard that before. Pretty cool that you were on an ex-Braniff plane too. Thanks for that!
I remember flying a Convair 440 from Laguardia to Binghamton in the 1980s for work. I hadn’t flown in many prop planes and the journey to Binghamton was slightly delayed as Laguardia was reduced to one runway. As we took off I was on the left and looking out the window as we crossed the other runway there were emergency vehicles as a two engine general aviation plane had landed and its landing gear either collapsed or failed to deploy. Certainly added a little to the experience. If memory services me correctly the windows did not have pull down shades… Read more »
That’s brilliant that you got to experience that. Sounds like it was pretty memorable due to that GA plane. I would have remembered the drapes as well, pretty old school as you say. Thanks for sharing that!
I first flew a convair 440 at age 13 fom lga to orf. The plane was uncomfortable until they started the engines. I felt like I was in a coffin. The flight attendant stayed with me until we took off. We didn’t gain much altitude so I got to see some wonderful sight. I’ll never forget that ride
Sounds like a wonderful memory that you have there, with an interesting aircraft. Sounds good that the flight attendant was a good one. Thanks for sharing that one!
In the 1970’S, I worked for an airline called Mackey International Airlines which flew from Florida to the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos islands. They had 8 Convair 440’s and 2 Convair 580’s.. Flew on these A/C many times. This was the 2nd Mackey. The first flew from 1946 until 1967 when it merged with Eastern Airlines. The first Mackey also bought my Father’s airline (Midet Aviation Corp.) in 1955. Midet flew from Florida to the Bahamas from 1930 until the merger with Mackey. Mackey never had an accident in it’s history that injured or killed a passenger or… Read more »
Fantastic information here, I had heard of Mackey but not in such detail. I certainly didn’t know about the Convair 440 in 1980. How lucky were they that they managed to get back on the ground successfully and without serious injury. Wow! That is amazing. Thanks for all that – enjoyed the read.
By the time I was old enough to know of these things, most of the earlier Convairs in the US had been upgraded to 580 specs, notably with North Central and Frontier. Almost got on a Frontier 580 from Kansas City to Topeka, KS (a whopping 56nm) but as we were non-revving we got bumped to a later flight, a 737-200. SO disappointed with that one as I heard the 580’s were absolute beasts (in the good sense) and was looking forward to it. On the way back the same dang thing happened. Weird to think those flights were packed… Read more »
Yes, quite a number of the aircraft were upgraded to become turboprops, which is not too surprising and lengthened the life of the plane quite a bit. That is a short flight there in Kansas – shame you missed out, but still, you made it where you needed to go. So near and yet so far… 🙂
As a child, my first flight was on an American 240 from LGA to DCA. It was so slow that they even served a meal, but ran out before they got to the three of us, my aunt, uncle and me traveling together. We were given vouchers to eat at the Hot Shoppe restaurant at the airport, the precursor to what is now Marriott’s worldwide businesses. I later flew them on Mohawk Airlines while at college in New England. I eventually flew on a 540 while in the Army on what I think was TIA, Texas International Airlines.
What a shame they ran out of meals, but great you got on a Convair 240 for your first flight. That’s pretty cool! Meal vouchers have clearly been around quite some time. Nice to see it came around again when you were in the Army. It was quite a popular aircraft all round. Thanks for the comment!
I remember the Convair 580, which seemed big inside versus the B1900 or Saab 340.
Ahh yes, but that’s for another article 🙂
We operate 5 340’s with the stretch mod 5800 and powered by the Allison D22, and a pile of 580 that were built as 440’s