1-4 | Barnham Air Lines, Mississippi Central Lines | Douglas DC-3 | 1936 - 1946, 1936 - 1938

uuuhhhhhhh yeah so I realized that I haven't posted anything for this in a year and I've had this sitting around since June lol. Hopefully we'll have much more stuff as we get past the template drought of pre-jet age aircraft. I'm too lazy to make all the Lockheed's that I want to make.

Theophile Guidry and his Mississippi Central Lines (now doing business as the Mississippi Central Air System) was booming by the time the mid-to-late 1930s came around. Although being one of the younger players in the game, a mixture of managerial success and other circumstances led them to become a dominant airline in the central US. They hadn't yet expanded to the point of running Transcontinental services across the country, but they had great interest in expanding into the Caribbean and Latin American market. Mississippi Central had been utilizing the DC-2 on many longer distance flights, but they wanted something that could have the space for sleepers. Ultimately a long series of discussions between Guidry and Donald Douglas would lead to the development of the DC-3 in which MCAS would be one of the main launch customers for. This move would ultimately sour the relationships between many members on the airline's board of executives who had personal connections to Lockheed and wished to maintain a cordial business relationship with them. The debacle over Giudry's relationship with Douglas would lead to a mutiny among the board with a faction backed by a good portion of investors and the faction that sided with Guidry and eventually J.D. Barnham once he offered to purchase a majority stake in the airline in 1938. Following 1938, MCAS would be rebranded as Barnham Air Line's western division although the two companies remained legally separate for the time being. This situation between Barnham Airlines and Mississippi Central Lines d.b.a Barnham Air Lines W.D. laid down the groundwork for the formation of the Wabash Air Lines System in 1946.

Barnham Airlines wouldn't be involved in the development of the DC-3, as they had a fairly good relationship with Curtiss for the time being, but they did express great interest in the DC-3 as a replacement for their Curtiss Condor II's. With MCAS falling under the Barnham umbrella following 1938 and the shifting of Curtiss-Wright's aircraft production towards military applications, Barnham would use the chance to get a whole lot closer with the Douglas Company. The DC-3 would operate as a staple of Barnham, then Wabash's, fleet until they were retired from service in 1955.