Originally Posted by
411A
The DC-7 was a bit of a disappointment.
Something of an understatement there ! It seems the DC7 (whose achilles heel was the Wright engines) was even worse than the comparably-engined Constellation. The Connie seemed to have a lot of emotional support (still does) and operators persevered with it, whereas the DC6 operators who moved on to the DC7 just got hacked off with it in short order. Some operators (like American) scrapped their whole substantial fleets of them after 5 years service when the jets came along, whereas older DC6s lasted much longer and had resale value for years beyond.
The Wright engine was known by the mid 1950s to be second rate compared to Pratts. Why ever did Douglas, market leaders at the time, make the change ? Notably the DC6 continued in production throughout the DC7's build time.