The Berlin Airlift was an epic episode in the Cold War by all estimations, with the US and the UK commandeering hundreds of daily cargo flights into a divided Berlin in an attempt to assuage the effects of a Soviet blockade. At the start of the Berlin Airlift, British advisors estimated that they'd need to bring at least 1990 calories per person per day to Berlin to keep the population sustained, and knew from the get-go that many Berliners would have to go hungry.
Against all the odds, Berlin was sustained by air for fifteen months, receiving over two million tons of supplies (with two-thirds of the supplies reportedly being coal1). But what were the aircraft which lifted the cargo, and how were the able to move so much mass for so long without a break?
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