Recently Added: Douglas DC-6 and Sud Aviation Caravelle
Two New In-House Made Aircraft Templates
I’ve added 2 new aircraft types to the JStream aircraft collection, both of them in-house made templates:
The Caravelle and the DC-6 are the 108th and 109th aircraft templates to join my collection of aircraft used across the JStream site, and they are also the 20th and 21st in-house made templates to be drawn by me personally.
About the Sud Aviation Caravelle
The Sud Aviation SE 210 Caravelle is a French jet airliner that was produced by Sud Aviation and entered revenue service on 26 April 1959 with Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS). It included some de Havilland designs and components previously developed for the de Havilland DH.106 Comet.
A first generation jet airliner, the short to medium range, Caravelle was designed to seat five passengers abreast and powered by two aft-mounted Rolls-Royce Avon turbojet engines. Its engine configuration has been replicated on many narrowbody and regional jet aircraft designs ever since. Sud Aviation went on to build 282 Caravelle aircraft until production ended in 1972. Sud Aviation was later merged into the aircraft manufacturer group that built the legendary Concorde supersonic airliner, before eventually becoming part of the company now branded as Airbus.
I have long considered the Caravelle to be one of the most beautiful airliners ever built, alongside the Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation which I debuted recently. Its art deco like appearance with virtually few square corners in the airframe design was and is a rarity in most jet aircraft. The Caravelle’s distinctive triangular shaped passenger windows (which actually looked more like a shovel head, similar in shape to California State Highway road signs) were designed that way to reduce sun glare for passengers, but it also made the plane look cool and trendy.
I drew the Caravelle template from scratch, using old reference pictures I had found across the web; I couldn’t find a reliable schematic diagrams with better details. I’ve rendered the Caravelle in bare metal and white, and I plan to feature it in a future fictional airline depiction.
About the Douglas DC-6
While I drew up the Sud Aviation Caravelle for its looks, I came to draw up the Douglas DC-6 template for more practical reasons: The DC-6 kept coming up as a former aircraft type in my research to write fictional airline stories.
I had a licensed template of its predecessor the Douglas DC-4 that was created by Norebbo, but the DC-4 had a pretty short half-life in civil aviation compared to its renowned predecessor the Douglas DC-3 and its successor the DC-6. The DC-4 was retired by 1991, but there are DC-6 aircraft still flying today. Since I had drawn up the DC-3 template recently, I decided why not draw up the DC-6 too? So I did.
I drew the DC-6 from scratch based on a 1950s era Pan Am illustration, with a few details inspired by old technical drawings. I’ve rendered the DC-6 in both bare metal and white, and it will be featured in an upcoming article I’m writing about CalAir, a fictional California airline with a history dating back to 1950.
Below are embedded links to the relevant aircraft reference pages. You can also find them from my aircraft inventory page, which lists all aircraft depicted on this site.