Originally Posted by
treadigraph
I identified the 7s largely by their fins.
DC4 - rounded windows
DC6 - squared windows, three-bladed props
DC7 - four-bladed props.
PSA in their early years in California, up against United and Western with DC6s, and with passengers savvy to this difference, painted squared window outlines in black paint round their DC4 windows
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The long-lived Merpati Vanguards were part of a (then) Indonesian government regulation that allowed competitors to Garuda on domestic flights, but not jets, which only Garuda were allowed. It gave a last hurrah for passenger Vanguards and Electras.
The Merchantman conversions had a number of oddball assignments. Taking the female panda Chi-Chi from London to Moscow zoo for a "date" with their male panda An-An (nothing resulted from it) was one such in front of all the media. Returned in an Antonov 12. More interesting but less prominent was they were used on several flights to take the BA-specified and UK-built cabin fittings for the first BA Tristars to the Lockheed assembly plant in Palmdale, California, routing via Montreal and Calgary, ports where Air Canada engineers knew the Vanguard, and likely still had spares in the stores. It was unknown in the USA, where the Electra dominated. If you ever saw the two types side-by-side on the ramp, you realised how much bigger the Vanguard was than the Electra, in all dimensions.