N500EJ

N500EJ is a Douglas Aircraft Company DC-4, a four-engine piston aircraft operated by BERLIN AIRLIFT HISTORIAL FOUNDATION. SkyMeter has tracked 52 flights totalling 34 hours of airtime via ADS-B. The most frequent segment is KMQI to KFFA. Service window in our records spans 378 days. Of those flights, 8 (15.4%) carry at least one detected incident — go-around, unstable approach, stall warning, or runway excursion. The Douglas Aircraft Company DC-4 has a maximum takeoff weight of 73,000 lb, medium wake category.

About the Douglas Aircraft Company DC-4

The Douglas DC-4 was the first four-engine, long-range airliner designed for pressurized transcontinental and transatlantic service, though production aircraft were delivered unpressurized due to wartime priorities. First flown in 1942, the DC-4 became the workhorse of post-war commercial aviation and played a pivotal role in the 1948-49 Berlin Airlift, where C-54 Skymasters (the military designation) flew over 189,000 missions to sustain the blockaded city. Its robust design, reliable Pratt & Whitney R-2000 radial engines, and 3,900-mile range made it the backbone of international air cargo and passenger operations throughout the late 1940s and 1950s.

Powered by four 1,450-horsepower piston engines, the DC-4 cruised at 207 mph at altitudes up to 22,300 feet and could carry 44 passengers or equivalent cargo. More than 1,200 were built, with the vast majority serving as military C-54s during World War II before entering civilian service. The type pioneered reliable long-haul operations across the Atlantic and Pacific, proving that four-engine airliners could maintain schedules previously impossible for smaller twins. Its rugged construction and generous payload capacity kept DC-4s flying freight and charter missions well into the 1980s, decades after jets had replaced them on scheduled passenger routes.

Today, a handful of DC-4s remain airworthy in the hands of historical foundations and specialty cargo operators, preserving the legacy of an aircraft that defined the transition from wartime military transport to the golden age of propeller airliners. SkyMeter has tracked flights across airframes and operators, with the largest observed operator.