on june 24, 1948, the former soviet union blocked all land and water routes through east germany to berlin. a gigantic airlift was organized using american and british planes to bring food, clothing, and other supplies to the more than 2 million people in west berlin. the americans had two types of planes available, the c-47 skytrain and the c-54 skymaster. the carrying capacity was 3.5 tons for a c-47 and 10 tons for a c-54. to break the soviet blockade, the western allies had to maximize carrying capacity, but the americans were limited by the following restrictions: