Ready for takeoff, runway 24L

Lockheed XB-30

2006-12-14T01:00:00.000-08:00

Lockheed XB-30

The Lockheed XB-30 was the design submitted by Lockheed after the request by the United States Army Air Forces for a very heavy bomber, the same request that led to the B-29 Superfortress and B-32 Dominator.

Around 1938, General Henry H. 'Hap' Arnold, the head of the Army Air Force, was growing alarmed at the possibility of war in Europe and in the Pacific. Hoping to be prepared for the long-term requirements of the Air Force, Arnold created a special committee chaired by Brigadier General W. G. Kilner; one of its members was Charles Lindbergh. After a tour of Luftwaffe bases, Lindbergh became convinced that Nazi Germany was far ahead of other European nations. In a report in 1939, the committee made a number of recommendations, including development of new long-range heavy bombers. When war broke out in Europe, Arnold requested design studies from several companies on a Very Long-Range bomber capable of traveling 5000 miles (8000 km). Approval was granted on December 2.

It never progressed past the design stage, mainly because Boeing had a huge head start with its B-29 Superfortress. Only a scale model was built. However, it was the foundation of the Lockheed Constellation and its military version, the C-69 Constellation.

Scale model of the Lockheed XB-30 bomber concept.

Specifications (as designed)

General characteristics

Crew: 12
Length: 104 ft 8 in (31.91 m)
Wingspan: 123 ft 0 in (37.50 m)
Height: 23 ft 9 in (7.25 m)
Wing area: 1,646 ft² (153 m²)
Empty weight: 51,616 lb (23,462 kg)
Loaded weight: 85,844 lb (39,020 kg)
Max takeoff weight: 93,808 lb (42,640 kg)
Powerplant: 4× Wright R-3350-13 , 2,200 hp (1,600 kW) each

Performance

Maximum speed: 382 mph (615 km/h)
Range: 5,333 mi ()
Service ceiling: 17,832 ft (5,440 m)
Rate of climb: ft/min (m/s)
Wing loading: 52 lb/ft² (255 kg/m²)
Power/mass: 0.10 hp/lb (170 W/kg)

Armament

Guns:
8× .50 in (12.7 mm) machine guns in four fuselage turrets
2× .50 in (12.7 mm) machine guns and
1× 20 mm cannon in tail barbette

Bombs: 3,300 lb

Lockheed Constellation

2006-12-14T00:57:00.000-08:00

Lockheed Constellation

The Lockheed Constellation, affectionately known as the “Connie”, was a four-engine propeller-driven airliner built by Lockheed between 1943 and 1958 at its Burbank, California, USA, facility. A total of 856 aircraft were produced in four models, all distinguished by a distinctive triple-tail design and graceful, dolphin-shaped fuselage. It was used as both a civilian airliner and U.S. military air transport plane, seeing service in the Berlin Airlift and as the presidential aircraft for President Eisenhower.

Constellation

A Qantas Empire Airways L-749 Constellation.
Type	Airliner
Manufacturer	Lockheed
Designed by	Clarence "Kelly" Johnson Hall Hibbard
Maiden flight	1943-01-09
Introduced	1943, Air Transport Command 1946-02-06 with TWA
Retired	1967-05-11, civilian 1978, military
Primary user	Trans World Airlines
Variants	EC-121 Warning Star

Background

Excalibur: The Constellation's predecessor

Since 1937, Lockheed had been working on the L-044 Excalibur, a four-engine pressurized airliner. In 1939, Trans World Airlines, at the encouragement of major stockholder Howard Hughes, requested a 40-passenger short- and medium-range airliner, beyond the capabilities of the limited Excalibur design. This request led to the L-049 Constellation, designed by such Lockheed engineers as Kelly Johnson and Hall Hibbard.^[1] Willis Hawkins, another Lockheed engineer, maintains that the Excalibur program was purely a cover for the Constellation.^[2]

Development of the Constellation

The military's C-69 prototype was based on the initial L-049 design.

The Constellation's wing was effectively the same as that of the P-38 Lightning, differing only in scale.^[3] The distinctive triple tail kept the aircraft's overall height low enough so that it could fit in hangars already in existence.^[2]

The first prototype (civil registration NX25600) flew on January 9, 1943. The flight was a simple ferry hop from Burbank to Muroc Field for testing. Eddie Allen, on loan from Boeing, flew left seat, with Lockheed's own Milo Burcham as copilot. Rudy Thoren and Kelly Johnson were also on board.

Due to World War II, all production was diverted to C-69 military transport versions with an initial USAAF contract for 202 aircraft. With only 22 C-69s delivered before the end of hostilities, the military cancelled the remainder of the order. Aircraft already in production were thus finished as civilian airliners with deliveries beginning in November 1945.

Rumors persist that Hughes himself was influential in the design of the Constellation, but these are untrue. His only input was suggestions on the required performance and cockpit layout. He left the rest of the design work to Lockheed.^[2]

Operational history

TWA was one of the best-known Constellation operators. The pictured aircraft is an L-1049 Super Constellation.

Lockheed Super Constellation at Air 04, Payerne, Switzerland

Trans World Airlines opened post-war commercial intercontinental air service on 6 February, 1946, with a New York - Paris flight in a Constellation. On 17 June, 1947, Pan American World Airways opened the first ever regularly-scheduled around-the-world service with their L-749 Clipper America. The famous flight Pan-Am PA 101 remained in service for 50 years.

As the first pressurized airliner in widespread use, the Constellation helped to usher in affordable and comfortable air travel for the masses. Some of the more famous operators of Constellations were TWA, Air France, Pan American World Airways, KLM, Lufthansa, Panair do Brasil, and Trans-Canada Airlines (later renamed Air Canada).

Initial difficulties

The Constellation suffered two accidents in 1946 which jeopardized its career as a passenger airliner. On June 18, the engine of a Pan American aircraft caught fire and fell off of the wing. The flight crew was able to make an emergency landing with no loss of life. However, on July 11, a TWA aircraft fell victim to inflight fire, taking the lives of five of the six people on board. The accidents prompted the suspension of the Constellation's airworthiness certificate until Lockheed could retrofit the design to avoid repeats of the problems.

The Constellation, like the other piston-powered airliners of the day, proved prone to engine failures, earning it the nickname of "the world's finest three-engine airliner" in some circles.^{[citation needed]}

Records

Sleek and powerful, Constellations set a number of records. On April 19, 1944, the second production L-049, piloted by Howard Hughes and TWA president Jack Frye flew from Burbank, California to Washington D.C. in 6 hours and 57 minutes. On the return trip, the aircraft stopped at Wright Field to give Orville Wright his last plane flight, more than forty years after his historic first flight. He commented that the wingspan on the Constellation was longer than the distance of his first flight.^[1]

On September 29, 1957, an L-1649A Starliner flew from Los Angeles to London in 18 hours and 32 minutes. The L-1649A still holds the record for the longest-duration non-stop passenger flight — during TWA's inaugural London to San Francisco flight on 1-2 October, 1957, the aircraft stayed aloft for a remarkable 23 hours and 19 minutes.

Obsolescence

The advent of jet airliners, with the de Havilland Comet, Boeing 707, and Convair 880, rendered the piston-engined Constellation obsolete. The first routes lost to jets were the long overseas routes, but Constellations continued to fly domestic routes. The last scheduled passenger flight of a piston-engined airliner in the United States was made by a TWA L-749 on May 11, 1967.^[4] Many Constellations continued to serve as fast freighters for years to come.

Several Constellations have been restored in recent years, many to flying condition and are a popular sight at airshows. An (unflyable) example is visible at Greenwood Lake Airport, where it has been turned into part of the terminal building.

President Dwight Eisenhower flew in two Constellations, named Columbine II and Columbine III.

Two Constellations, the VC-121E Columbine III, used as Dwight D. Eisenhower's presidential aircraft, and an EC-121 Warning Star are fully restored and on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. Several former Air Force One craft are on display at the Pima Air Museum, Tucson, used by President Eisenhower and his sucessors. (web site)

Operators

Constellations were used by dozens of airlines and militaries around the world. In military service, the Navy/Air Force EC-121 Warning Star variant remained operational until 1978, nearly 40 years after work on the L-049 began.

Commercial

Civilian airlines that operated the Constellation included:

Military

The Constellation was used by the following militaries:

On screen

The story of Hughes' collaboration with Lockheed for the production of the Constellation is told, in part, in the 2004 film The Aviator.

Specifications (L-1049G)

Data from Great Aircraft of the World^[5], and Quest for Performance^[6]

General characteristics

Crew: 5 flight crew, varying cabin crew
Capacity: typically 62-95 passengers, up to 109 could be seated
Length: 116 ft 2 in (35.42 m)
Wingspan: 126 ft 2 in (38.47 m)
Height: 24 ft 9 in (7.54 m)
Wing area: 1,654 ft² (153.7 m²)
Empty weight: 79,700 lb (36,150 kg)
Useful load: 65,300 lb (29,620 kg)
Max takeoff weight: 137,500 lb (kg)
Powerplant: 4× Wright R-3350-DA3 Turbo Compound 18-cylinder supercharged radial engines, 3,250 hp (2,424 kW) each
Zero-lift drag coefficient: 0.0211

Drag area: 34.82 ft² (3.23 m²)
Aspect ratio: 9.17

Performance

Maximum speed: 380 mph (330 kt, 610 km/h)
Cruise speed: 354 mph (310 kt, 570 km/h) at 22,600 ft (6,890 m)
Stall speed: 100 mph (87 kt, 160 km/h)
Range: 5,400 mi (4,700 nm, 8,700 km)
Service ceiling: 25,000 ft (7,620 m)
Rate of climb: ft/min (m/s)
Wing loading: 87.7 lb/ft² (428 kg/m²)
Power/mass: 0.023 hp/lb (39 W/kg)

Lift-to-drag ratio: 16.0

P-2 Neptune

2006-12-14T00:55:00.000-08:00

P-2 Neptune

The Lockheed P-2 Neptune (until 1963 the P2V Neptune) was a naval patrol bomber and anti-submarine warfare (ASW) aircraft for the United States Navy between 1947 and 1978, replacing the PV-1 Ventura and PV-2 Harpoon and being replaced in turn with the P-3 Orion. Designed as a land-based aircraft, the Neptune never made a carrier landing, although a small number of aircraft were converted for carrier use and successfully launched. The type was successful in export, seeing service with the armed forces of Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, France, Britain, Japan, the Netherlands and Portugal. The Neptune shares the P-2 designation (albeit under a different designation system) with the Curtiss P-2 Hawk, a much earlier biplane.

Jump to: navigation, search

Early Neptunes

Development began early in World War II, but was considered a low priority and it was not until 1944 that things really got going. A major factor in the design was ease of manufacture and maintenance, and this can be said to have been a major factor in the type's long life and worldwide success. The first aircraft flew in 1945. Production began in 1946, and the aircraft was accepted into service in 1947.

P2V-7 Neptune of Patrol Squadron Seven (VP-7) over the Atlantic in 1954

"Truculent" Turtle

The third production P2V-1 was chosen for a record-setting mission, ostensibly to test crew endurance and long-range navigation but also for publicity purposes, to display the Navy's latest expensive plane. Loaded with fuel in extra tanks fitted in practically every spare space in the aircraft, the Turtle set out from Perth, Australia to the United States. The aircraft, invariably, seems to be called "Truculent Turtle" but, in fact, its name was simply "The Turtle"; which was painted on the aircraft's nose (along with a cartoon of a turtle smoking a pipe pedaling some device attached to a propeller). With a crew of four (and a nine month old gray kangaroo, a gift from Australia for the Washington, D.C zoo) the plane set off on September 9, 1946, with a RATO rocket-assisted takeoff. Two and a half days later, the Turtle touched down in Columbus, Ohio, 11,236.6 miles (18,083.6 km) from its starting point. It was the longest unrefuelled flight made to that point—4,000 miles (6,400 km) longer than the USAF's B-29 Superfortress record. This would stand as the absolute unrefuelled distance record until 1962, and would remain as a piston-engined record until 1986 when Dick Rutan's Voyager would break it in the process of circumnavigating the globe.

The Neptune in combat

Its combat uses included the Vietnam War, in which it was used by the US Navy as a gunship and patrol airplane, and by Argentina. In the Falklands War, it played a key role of reconnaissance and aiding Dassault Super Étendards. The lack of spare parts and their old airframes lead to the type being retired before the end of the war; Argentine Air Force C-130 Hercules took over the task of searching for targets for strike aircraft.

It was one of the first aircraft to be fitted in operational service with both piston and jet engines. The Convair B-36, several Boeing C-97 Stratofreighter, C-123 Provider, and Avro Shackleton aircraft also achieved that distinction; it leads naturally to an unusual sound during overflight.

Later use

In Australia, Canada, the Netherlands and the US Navy its tasks were taken over by the much larger and more capable P-3 Orion and by the 1970s it was only in use by US reserve units. The US Naval Reserve abandoned its last Neptunes in 1978. By the 1980s, it had fallen out of use in most purchasing nations, replaced by newer aircraft. A number still serve as fire-fighters in the United States. In Japan, the Neptune was license-built from 1966 by Kawasaki as the P-2J, with the piston engines replaced by IHI turboprops. Kawasaki continued their manufacture much later than Lockheed did; the P-2J remained in service until 1984.

P-2/P2Vs are currently employed in aerial firefighting roles by operators such as Aero Union and Neptune Aviation Services and can carry 2,400 gallons of retardant with a service life of 15,000 hours. Neptune proposes to replace them with Bombardier Q200 and Q300 aircraft which are estimated to have a service life of 80,000 hours.

Variants

Lockheed produced seven main variants of the P2V. In addition, Kawasaki built the turboprop-powered P-2J in Japan. Model names after the 1962 redesignation are given in parentheses.

[edit] United States Navy

A P2V-3C Neptune prepares to take off from the USS Midway.

Another Neptune carrier launch.

XP2V-1 - prototype, one produced
P2V-1 - first production model, 15 produced
P2V-2 - 81 produced
- P2V-2N "Polar Bear - modified Neptune with ski landing gear, one produced.
P2V-3 - upgraded powerplant, 83 produced
- P2V-3C - carrier-based Neptune, 11 produced
- P2V-3B - conversions from other P2V-3 models, 16 converted
- P2V-3W - search radar, 30 produced
- P2V-3Z - combat transport, two produced
P2V-4 - 52 produced
P2V-5 (P-2E) - 424 produced
- P2V-5F (AP-2E) - modification with J-34 jet engines
  - P2V-5FD (DP-2E) - further modification of P2V-5F with target towing or drone launch capability
  - P2V-5FE (EP-2E)
  - P2V-5FS (SP-2E)
- OP-2E - large belly-mounted radar
P2V-6 (P-2F) - aerial mine delivery, 83 produced
- P2V-6M - missile launch capability, 16 produced
- P2V-6F - modification with J-34 jet engines
- P2V-6T - trainer version
P2V-7 (P-2H) - last Neptune variant produced by Lockheed, 311 produced
- P2V-7S
- P2V-7LP - ski landing gear
- AP-2H
United States Air Force
RB-69A - aerial reconnaissance, seven produced

Japan Maritime Self Defense Force

P2V-kai - Japanese variant produced by Kawasaki with turboprop engines, 82 produced

Units using the Neptune

Royal Canadian Air Force

No. 404 Squadron RCAF

Specifications (P2V)

General characteristics

Crew: 7-9
Length: 91 ft 8 in (27.9 m)
Wingspan: 101 ft 4 in (30.9 m)
Height: 29 ft 4 in (8.9 m)
Wing area: 1,000 ft² (93 m²)
Empty weight: 49,548 lb (22,475 kg)
Loaded weight: 73,139 lb (33,175 kg)
Max takeoff weight: 79,895 lb (36,240 kg)
Powerplant:
- 2× Westinghouse J34-WE-36 turbojets, 3,400 lbf (15 kN) each
- 2× Wright R-3350-32W Cyclone Turbo-compound radial engines, 3,700 hp (2,800 kW) each
Performance
Maximum speed: 403 mph (649 km/h)
Range:
Combat: 2,200 mi (3,500 km)
Ferry: 4,350 mi (7,000 km)
Service ceiling: 22,000 ft (6,700 m)
Rate of climb: 1,760 ft/min (9 m/s)
Wing loading: 73 lb/ft² (360 kg/m²)

Armament

Rockets: 2.75" FFAR in removable wing-mounted pods
Bombs: 10,000 lb (4,500 kg) including free-fall bombs, depth charges, and torpedoes

XP-58 Chain Lightning

2006-12-14T00:54:00.000-08:00

XP-58 Chain Lightning

P-58 Chain Lightning

The sole completed XP-58
Type	Heavy fighter
Manufacturer	Lockheed
Maiden flight	1944-06-06
Status	Cancelled
Number built	1

Development

The XP-58 was a Lockheed Aircraft Company funded initiative to develop an improved Lightning as a long-range fighter following the release by the U.S. Army Air Corps of the Lightning for sale to Britain on April 20, 1940. Initially, two designs were formulated, both using the Continental IV-1440 engines. One would be a single seat aircraft with one 20 mm cannon and four 0.5 in (12.7 mm) machine guns. The second would be a two seat aircraft with the addition of a flexible 0.5 in (12.7 mm) gun at the end of each tail boom.

By July 1940, when use of the Pratt & Whitney XH-2600 was entertained, it was decided that the aircraft would have two seats, and the aircraft was designated XP-58. However, soon Lockheed was advised the development of the XH-2600 engine was terminated. After consideration of the engine alternatives, the design was changed to use two Wright R-2160 Tornado engines, as well as a change of the rear facing armament to two turrets, one upper and the other lower on the fuselage, each turret containing two 0.5 in (12.7 mm) machine guns. As support equipment for the two crewmen was added the estimated weight of the XP-58 grew to 34.242 lb (15.532 kg) by August 1941.

As vacillation continued over the engine and role of the XP-58, the A.A.F. agreed to a Lockheed proposal for a second XP-58 that would incorporate features to obtain a range of 3,000 miles (4,800 km). Then, in September 1942, a decision was made to convert the aircraft for a role as a low altitude tank-killer, which introduced complications as the Beechcraft XA-38 Grizzly was being developed for this role. As a result, the second XP-58 was canceled and the role of the design reverted to that of a high altitude fighter, but one using 75 mm cannon to breakup bomber formations.

In February 1943, use of another engine, the Allison V-3420, was necessary due to poor progress with the Tornado engine development. With this change the second XP-58 was resurrected. The XP-58 finally flew on June 6, 1944, but flight test work on the XP-58 took second place to other higher priority developments. Eventually twenty-five test flights were completed. The XP-58 was then flown to Wright Field for A.A.F. acceptance tests, even though the turbo-superchargers were experiencing torching, cockpit pressurization and armament with its fire-control equipment were also not installed. Although the prototype arrived at Wright Field on October 22, 1944 the aircraft was a maintenance headache and no further trials were conducted. The construction of the second prototype was abandoned.

Specifications (XP-58)

General characteristics

Crew: two, pilot and gunner
Length: 49 ft 4 in (15.0 m)
Wingspan: 70 ft (21.3 m)
Height: 16 ft (4.9 m)
Wing area: 600 ft² (56 m²)
Empty weight: 21,624 lb (9,808 kg)
Loaded weight: lb (kg)
Max takeoff weight: 39,192 lb (17,777 kg)
Powerplant: 2× Allison V-3420 24 cylinder liquid-cooled engines, 3,000 hp (2,200 kW) each

Performance

Maximum speed: 436 mi/h at 25,000 ft (702 km/h)
Range: statute miles (km)
Service ceiling: 38,400 ft (11,700 m)
Rate of climb: 2,660 ft/min (13.5 m/min)
Wing loading: kg/m² (lb/ft²)
Power/mass: 0.15 hp/lb (0.12 kW/kg)

Armament

Four 37 mm cannon and four 0.5 in (12.7 mm) machine guns in two remotely controlled flexible turrets or,
One 75 mm cannon and two 0.5 in (12.7 mm) machine guns in the nose and two turrets.

Lockheed XP-49

2006-12-14T00:53:00.000-08:00

Lockheed XP-49

The Lockheed XP-49 was an advancement on the P-38 for a fighter in response to U.S. Army Air Corps proposal 39-775 that was equipped with the new Pratt & Whitney X-1800 twenty-four cylinder engine. Assigned model number 522 by Lockheed, this proposal, which was for an aircraft substantially similar to the P-38, was evaluated first place and was assigned the designation XP-49, while the Grumman Model G-46 was awarded second place and designated XP-50.

Ordered in October 1939 under a contract approved on January 8, 1940, the X-1800 powered XP-49 would feature a pressurized cockpit and armament of two 20 mm cannon and four 0.5 inch (12.7 mm) machine guns. However, after two months into the contract a decision was made to substitute the Continental XI-1430-1 twelve cylinder liquid-cooled inverted vee engines for the X-1800. The XP-49 first flew on November 11, 1942. But, after a crash landing in early January 1943 occurred when the port landing gear failed to lock down due to a combined hydraulic and electric failure. The XP-49 flew again on February 16, 1943 after repairs were made. The preliminary flight data showed that performance of the XP-49 was not sufficiently better than the then production P-38, and with a questionable future for the XI-1430 engine, to warrant disruption of the production line to introduce the new model aircraft. Consideration of quantity production was therefore abandoned.

The aircraft was flown to Wright Field, and after various problems further work on the XP-49 was halted.

P-49

Type	Fighter
Manufacturer	Lockheed
Designed by	Clarence Johnson
Maiden flight	1942-11-11
Status	Cancelled
Number built	1

Specifications (XP-49)

General characteristics

Crew: One
Length: 40 ft 1 in (12.2 m)
Wingspan: 52 ft (15.8 m)
Height: 9 ft 10 in (3.0 m)
Wing area: 327.5 ft² (30 m²)
Empty weight: 15,410 lb (6990 kg)
Loaded weight: 18,750 lb (8505 kg)
Powerplant: 2× Continental XI-1430-1 inverted V-12s, 1,600 hp (1,193 kW) each

Performance

Maximum speed: 406 mph (653 km/h) 15,000 ft (4,570 m)
Range: 679 mi (1,093 km)
Rate of climb: 3,300 ft/min (16.8 m/s)

Armament

2x 20 mm cannon
4x 0.5 in (12.7 mm) machine guns

P-38 Lightning

2006-12-14T00:50:00.000-08:00

P-38 Lightning

"P-38" redirects here. For other uses, see P-38 (disambiguation).

P-38 Lightning

Type	Fighter
Manufacturer	Lockheed
Designed by	Clarence "Kelly" Johnson
Maiden flight	27 January 1939
Introduced	8 June 1941
Retired	USAF 1949
Status	Retired
Primary user	United States Army Air Force
Produced	1941-September 1945
Number built	9,942
Unit cost	US$134,284 when new ^[1]
Variants	XP-58 Chain Lightning

The Lockheed P-38 Lightning was one of the most important American fighters of the Second World War. Although its operational record was somewhat mixed, in general, the P-38 was a fast, powerful and capable twin boom aircraft that performed well in a wide range of roles.

The aircraft had twin booms with the engines mounted forward and a single, central nacelle containing the pilot and armament. The engine sounds were a unique, rather quiet "whuffle," because the exhausts were muffled by the turbochargers of the twin Allison V12s. The canopy could not be opened without severe buffeting, so pilots were often too hot in the tropics. In northern Europe, the distance of the engines from the cockpit prevented effective heating of the cockpit, thus it was always either too hot or too cold. However, late variants of the P-38 received modifications that solved this problem.

Design and development

Lockheed YP-38 (1943)

Lockheed designed the P-38 in response to a 1937 United States Army Air Corps request for a high-altitude interceptor, capable of 360 mph at altitude of 20,000 ft, (580 km/h at 6100 m). The Bell P-39 Airacobra and the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk were designed to meet the same requirements.

At that time, US piston engines could not push fighter performance to ideal limits so the Lockheed design team, under the direction of Clarence “Kelly” Johnson decided to use two turbo-supercharged 12-cylinder Allison V-1710 engines which had not been rated at even 1000 hp (746 kW). The P-38 was the first plane developed by the new Skunk Works team in Burbank, California.

Johnson's concepts covered a range of configurations, but the Lockheed team chose twin booms, seen earlier on the Fokker G.I, to accommodate the empennage and the engines with a central nacelle for the pilot and armament. The propellers rotated in opposite directions to eliminate the effect of torque. The superchargers were positioned in the booms, behind the engines. Armament comprised of four machine guns in the nose of the nacelle clustered around a cannon. The design was the first fighter to utilize tricycle undercarriage.

The prototype Lockheed Model 22, later designated XP-38, rolled out in December 1938 and first flew on 27 January 1939. It set a cross-continent speed record by flying from California to New York on 11 February 1939 in seven hours, two minutes, including two fuel stops. Unfortunately, the prototype landed short of the runway in New York and was wrecked, much to the distress of the Lockheed engineering team. They had opposed the flight, but it was done at the insistence of General Henry "Hap" Arnold, commander of the USAAC, as a publicity stunt.

Although the loss of the aircraft was a serious setback (putting the program back two years), on the basis of the record flight, the Air Corps ordered 13 YP-38s in April 1939. If the XP-38 had not been destroyed, orders would not have been placed until the prototype had been thoroughly evaluated.

P-38 flying over California.

However, manufacture of the YP-38s proved troublesome, and the first example didn't roll off the production line until September 1940, with the last delivered in June 1941. Although they looked much like the hand-built XP-38, they were substantially redesigned and differed greatly in detail. They were lighter, and included changes in engine fit, particularly in that propeller spin rotation was reversed, with the blades rotating outwards (away) from the cockpit at the top of their arc rather than inwards as before. This change, according to Kelly Johnson, improved the aircraft's stability as a gunnery platform.

Although weapons were not fitted in most of these aircraft, they were designed to be armed with two Browning .50 calibre (12.7 mm) machine guns with 200 rounds per gun, two .30 calibre (7.62 mm) Brownings with 500 rounds per gun, and an Oldsmobile 37 mm cannon with 15 rounds.

Orders were already in hand from France, Britain and the USAAC. The French and the British ordered a total of 667, with Model 322F for the French and Model 322B for the British. Each variant had unique modifications for their respective air arms, such as metric measurements on the flight indicators for the French aircraft, but they both shared a major change from all other P-38 variants in that turbo-superchargers were deleted and the left-handed and right-handed engine arrangement was changed to twin right-handed engines.

As turbo-superchargers were a new technology, the Anglo-French purchasing commission was concerned that turbo-superchargers might lead to delays, and being intended for medium-altitude combat, were not needed. The requirement for sole use of right-handed engines was for commonality with the large numbers of Curtiss Tomahawks both nations had on order. (Moreover, the turbocharged engines were prohibited from export by the U.S. government.) Lockheed engineers protested strongly against this decision, and privately labeled the variant the "castrated" P-38.

After the fall of France in June 1940, the British took over the entire order. They decided that only the first 143 of the order would be delivered in the unsupercharged format, as Model 322 Lightning Mk Is, with the remaining 524 to be delivered with turbo-superchargers and left and right-handed engines, as Model 322 Lightning Mk IIs.

The British never got that far. Three of the unsupercharged Lightning Is were delivered to the UK in March 1942, and were promptly given a thumbs-down. They "topped out" at 480 km/h (300 mph) and had nasty handling characteristics, so the entire order was cancelled.

The remaining 140 Lightning Is were completed for the USAAF. The rest of this batch, most refitted with counter-rotating engines but still minus turbo-superchargers, were relegated to United States Army Air Forces training units under the designation RP-322. These aircraft helped the USAAF train new pilots to fly a powerful and complex new fighter. The RP-322 was actually a fairly hot aircraft at low altitude and perfectly satisfactory in the training role.

The other positive result of this fiasco was to give the aircraft the name "Lightning." Lockheed originally dubbed the aircraft Atalanta in the company tradition of naming their planes after mythological and celestial figures, but the RAF name won out.

Thirty initial production P-38 Lightnings were delivered to the USAAF in mid-1941. Although not all these aircraft were armed, when they were, they were fitted with four .50 calibre (12.7 mm) machine guns (instead of the two .50 calibre (12.7 mm) and two .30 calibre (7.62 mm) weapons of their predecessors) but the 37 mm cannon was retained. They also had armor glass, cockpit armor and fluorescent cockpit controls. One was completed with a pressurized cabin on an experimental basis and designated XP-38A.

These 30 aircraft were part of an order for 66, but in light of USAAF feedback, the remaining 36 in the batch were fitted with various small improvements such as self-sealing tanks and enhanced armor protection to make them combat capable. For some odd reason, the USAAF specified that these 36 aircraft were to be designated P-38D. As a result, there never were any P-38Bs or P-38Cs. Early production variants of the Lightning are a confusing subject. None of these aircraft ever saw combat. Their main role in the story of the P-38 was to work out bugs and give the USAAF experience with handling the type.

Tail flutter was quickly found to be a problem. In an attempt to fix it, mass balances were attached to little booms in the middle of the elevator. This fix was derided by Kelly Johnson, who regarded the weights as useless, and, in fact, the buffeting eventually proved to be due to the straight connection of the wing root to the fuselage pod. A few aerodynamic changes, most particularly the addition of a wing-root fillet, solved the problem. Nonetheless, the external balances were a feature of every P-38 built from then on.

A more serious problem was "compressibility stall," the tendency of the controls to simply lock up in a high-speed dive, leaving the pilot no option but to bail out. The tail structure also had a nasty tendency to fall apart under such circumstances; this defect killed a YP-38 test pilot, Ralph Virden, in November 1940.

USAAC Major Signa Gilkey managed to stay with a YP-38 in a compressibility lockup, riding it out until he got to denser air, where he recovered using elevator trim. This feat led to experiments that would eventually resolve the problem.

Kelly Johnson later recalled: "I broke an ulcer over compressibility on the P-38 because we flew into a speed range where no one had ever been before, and we had difficulty convincing people that it wasn't the funny-looking airplane itself, but a fundamental physical problem. We found out what happened when the Lightning shed its tail and we worked during the whole war to get 15 more knots [28 km/h] more speed out of the P-38. We saw compressibility as a brick wall for a long time. Then we learned how to get through it."

That would not be until later, however, and the new P-38 had other defects. The most dangerous problem was that both engines were "critical" engines—losing one on takeoff, which happened often, created "critical torque," rolling the plane towards the live engine's wingtip, rather than the dead engine's. Normal reflex in pilots flying twin engine aircraft would be to push the remaining engine to full throttle when they lost an engine on takeoff, but in the P-38, the resulting critical torque would produce such an uncontrollable level of asymmetric roll that the aircraft would flip over and slam upside-down into the ground. Eventually, procedures were devised to allow a pilot to deal with the situation by reducing power on the running engine, feathering the prop on the dead engine, and then increasing power gradually until the aircraft was in stable flight.

Lightnings go to war

P-38 at sunset.

The first combat-capable Lightning was the P-38E, which featured improved instruments, electrical systems, and hydraulic systems; new Curtiss Electric duraluminum propellers (though early P-38E production retained the older Hamilton Standard Hydromatic hollow steel propellers) and the definitive armament configuration, featuring four 12.7 mm machine guns with 500 rounds per gun and a Hispano 20 mm cannon with 150 rounds instead of the unreliable Oldsmobile 37 mm gun.

Interestingly, while the machine guns had been arranged symmetrically in the nose on earlier variants, they were "staggered" in the P-38E and later versions, with the muzzles sticking out of the nose in the relative lengths of roughly 1:4:6:2. This was done to ensure a straight ammunition belt feed into the weapons, as the earlier arrangement had led to jamming.

The first P-38E rolled out of the factory in October 1941. 210 P-38Es were built. They were followed, starting in April 1942, by the P-38F, which incorporated racks inboard of the engines for fuel tanks or a total of 900 kg (2,000 pounds) of bombs. 527 P-38Fs were built. Over a hundred P-38Es were completed in the factory or converted in the field to a photo-reconnaissance variant, the F-4, in which the guns were replaced by four cameras. Most of these early reconnaissance Lightnings were retained stateside for training, but the F-4 was the first Lightning to see combat, beginning operations out of Australia and then New Guinea in April 1942. Three of the F-4s were operated by the Royal Australian Air Force in this theater for a short period beginning in September 1942.

By June 1942, P-38s were operating in the Aleutians as well. The fighter's long range made it well-suited to the campaign over the almost 2,000 km (1,200 mile) long island chain, and it would be flown there for the rest of the war. It was one of the most rugged environments available for testing the new aircraft under combat conditions. More Lightnings were lost due to weather and other conditions than enemy action. There were cases where Lightning pilots, mesmerized by flying for hours over gray seas under gray skies, simply flew into the water. Nonetheless, the P-38 scored successes. On 4 August 1942, two P-38Es, operating at the 1,600 km (1,000 mile) end of a long-range patrol, bounced a pair of Japanese Kawanishi H6K "Mavis" flying boats and destroyed them. They were the first of many Japanese aircraft to be shot down by the Lightning.

In the meantime, Lightnings of the 1st Fighter Group were being flown across the Atlantic via Iceland to England, though most of them made the trip on freighters. On 15 August, a P-38F and a P-40 operating out of Iceland shot down a Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor shipping raider over the Atlantic. This was reputedly the first Luftwaffe aircraft destroyed by the USAAF.

The Lightnings sent to England were part of the force being built up for the invasion of North Africa. The invasion took place in November 1942, and Lightning units, including a photo-reconnaissance unit under command of Colonel Elliott Roosevelt, the American president's son, then began acquiring familiarity with operating under "austere conditions" and matching their skills and aircraft against the enemy.

The Lightning proved surprisingly maneuverable at low altitudes, mostly due to very docile low-speed stall characteristics. The contra-rotating props had the benefit of eliminating the effects of engine torque, and on occasion a Lightning could even out-turn smaller fighters. However, maneuverability was not its strong suit, its major virtue in combat being a "terrific zoom climb" that would leave pursuers in the dust. Luftwaffe pilots also quickly learned not to make head-on attacks on the P-38, since its concentrated firepower ensured mutual destruction. Although not the best dogfighter, the P-38 was a formidable interceptor and attack aircraft and in the hands of a good pilot could be dangerous in air-to-air combat. The P-38 remained a force in the Mediterranean for the rest of the war.

A growing need for long-range escort fighters in Northwest Europe to protect heavy bomber operations resulted in four groups of Lightnings being deployed to the 8th Air Force in 1943-44. Although the P-38 gained a reputation with the Luftwaffe as the "fork-tailed devil," its performance at frigid high altitudes was disappointing and it proved difficult to maintain. By September 1944, all the Lightning groups in the 8th Air Force had converted to the P-51.

Four P-38s flying in formation.

However, the Lightning proved ideally suited for the Pacific theater, as it combined excellent performance with very long range. While the P-38 could not out-maneuver the Zero and most other Japanese fighters, its speed and climb gave American pilots the option of choosing to fight or run and its focused firepower was even more deadly to lightly-armored Japanese warplanes than to the Germans. Jiro Horikoshi, designer of the Zero, wrote: "The peculiar sound of the P-38's twin engines became both familiar and hated by the Japanese all across the South Pacific."

General George C. Kenney, commander of the USAAF Fifth Air Force operating in New Guinea, could not get enough P-38s, though since they were replacing serviceable but inadequate P-39s and P-40s, this might seem like guarded praise. But Lightning pilots began to compete in racking up scores against Japanese aircraft, including one of the most famous missions of the war, the interception of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto on 17 April 1943.

Yamamoto was the architect of Japan's naval strategy in the Pacific, including the attack on Pearl Harbor. When American codebreakers found out that he was flying to Bougainville Island to conduct a front-line inspection, 16 Lightnings were sent on a long-range flight to intercept him: four to actually attack the bombers and the other 12 as top cover. The mission went off perfectly, the Lightnings met Yamamoto's Mitsubishi G4M "Betty" bomber and escorting Zero fighters just as they arrived, and the G4M was shot down over the jungle. The Admiral was killed.

(See main article: Death of Isoroku Yamamoto)

The P-38F was followed in early 1943 by the P-38G, utilizing more powerful Allisons of 1,400 hp (1,040 kW) each and equipped with a better radio. A total of 1,082 P-38Gs were built. The P-38G was followed in turn by 601 similar P-38Hs, with further uprated Allisons (1,425 hp [1,060 kW] each), an improved 20 mm cannon and a bomb capacity of 1,450 kg (3,200 pounds). These models were also field-modified into F-4B and F-5A reconnaissance aircraft.

There was never a P-38I. The USAAF didn't use the "I" designation since it looked like the numeral "1" (one).

The Lightning in maturity: P-38J, P-38L

The definitive P-38J was introduced in August 1943. The twin booms of previous Lightnings featured a sleek, art-deco streamlining, however, the turbocharger intercooler system that had been housed in the leading edges of the wings had proven vulnerable to combat damage and could explode if the wrong series of controls were mistakenly activated. Ultimately, they were inefficient, consequently, the engine and radiator configuration was rethought.

The most noticeable feature of the new fit was that the intercooler radiators were placed under the prop hub at the front of the booms, forming a "chin" that made the P-38J visibly different from its predecessors. The space left open in the wings was replaced with fuel tanks, further increasing the aircraft's long range. The revised radiator configuration made cooling much more efficient and improved both performance and reliability.

Late production P-38Js also finally ameliorated the compressibility problem through the introduction of minor aerodynamic changes, particularly the addition of a set of small dive flaps just outboard of the engines on the bottom centerline of the wings. With these improvements, a USAAF pilot reported a dive speed of almost 970 km/h (600 mph) and recovered in one piece. After World War II, it was realized that the reported air speed had to be corrected for compressibility error as well, so the actual dive speed was lower than reported.

Finally, later production of the P-38J was equipped with power-boosted flight controls, one of the first times such a system was fitted to a fighter, and did much to improve the Lightning's roll rate at high speeds and maneuverability. With a truly satisfactory Lightning in place, Lockheed ramped up production, working with subcontractors across the country to produce hundreds of Lightnings each month. Some 2,970 P-38Js were built.

P-38J Lightning "Yippee"

The 5,000th Lightning built, a P-38J, was painted fire-engine red, and had the name "YIPPEE" painted on the underside of the wings in big letters as well as the signatures of factory workers. This aircraft was used by Lockheed test pilots Milo Burcham and Tony LeVier in remarkable flight demonstrations, performing such stunts as slow rolls at treetop level with one prop feathered to show that the P-38 was not the unmanageable beast of legend. Their exploits did much to reassure pilots that the Lightning might be a handful, but it was no "widow maker." (Burcham was killed flying a P-80 Shooting Star in October 1944.)

There were two P-38Ks developed in 1942-1943. The first was a modified P-38E with the Hamilton Standard propellers being fitted to the P-47 and the new intercoolers being developed for the P-38J, its performance led to the development on the second aircraft. A modified P-38G (re-designated P-38K-1-LO) was fitted with the propellers and a new Allison engine with 100 more bhp than even the later P-38L. In tests it was rated at 432MPH in Military Power and predicted to exceed 450MPH in War Emergency Power with a similar increase in rate of climb, load, ceiling and range. However, the War board refused the change due to the two to three-week shutdown of the Lightning production line needed to redesign the cowlings to accommodate the new engine.

The P-38L was the most numerous variant of the Lightning, with 3,923 built, 113 by Consolidated-Vultee in their Nashville plant. It entered service with the USAAF in June of 1944, just in time for close support of Allied troops who invaded occupied France on D-Day. Lockheed production of the Lighting was distinguished by a suffix consisting of a production block number followed by "LO," for example "P-38L-1-LO," while Consolidated-Vultee production was distinguished by a block number followed by "VN," for example "P-38L-5-VN."

The P-38L was the first Lightning to offer zero-length rocket launchers, at first, with seven HVARs (high velocity aircraft rockets) on pylons beneath each wing but later with ten rockets on each wing on "Christmas tree" launch racks. The P-38L also had strengthened stores pylons to allow carriage of 900 kg (2,000 pound) bombs or 1,140 liter (300 US gallon) drop tanks.

200 P-38J airframes were modified in production to become unarmed F-5B photo-reconnaissance aircraft, while hundreds of other P-38Js and P-38Ls were field-modified to become F-5Es, F-5Fs, and F-5Gs. A few P-38Ls were field-modified to become two-seat TP-38L familiarization trainers.

Late model Lightnings were delivered unpainted, as per USAAF policy established in 1944. At first, field units tried to paint them, since pilots worried about being too visible to the enemy, but it turned out the reduction in weight was a minor plus in combat.

P-38s of 449th Fighter Squadron, Chengkung, 1945.

15 P-38Js and P-38Ls were flown by the Nationalist Chinese late in the war, and, after the war, they also received a similar number of F-5Es and F-5Gs.

The new P-38 Lightning was operated by the US Army Eighth Air Force in Europe beginning in 1943 for long-range escort missions, but did not achieve great success in this role. This was partly because it was harder to fly than a single-engine aircraft and, since it had no engine in front of the pilot to keep him warm, it was an "ice-box" on high-altitude missions. Still, the main reason for the P-38's relative failure in high-altitude operations in the European Theatre was due to engine failures experienced above 20,000 feet. The reasons for frequent engine failures were due to failing spark plugs and other parts that could not use the European, rain-drenched fuel.

The P-38L-5 - the most common sub-variant of the P-38L - had a modified cockpit heating system which consisted of a plug in the cockpit in which the pilot would plug his heat suit wire, giving him more comfort. As well, P-38L's were fitted with hydraulically operated dive flaps and ailerons, giving them better handling at higher speeds. These Lightnings also received the uprated V-1710-111/113 (F30) engines, and this dramatically lowered the amount of engine failure problems experienced at high altitude. By this time, however, the earlier P-38 models had left a negative reputation in the minds of those in charge of fighter escort for USAAF bombers and had been replaced by the more fuel-efficient, agile and cheaper-to-produce P-51 Mustang.

The Eighth operated F-5 recon variants with more enthusiasm and success. They were also operated by a Free French squadron, which worked as part of the USAAF Twelfth Air Force; the French would continue to operate the type up to 1952.

Unfortunately, since F-5s operated alone, when their missions went wrong, they generally disappeared without a trace. The noted aviation pioneer and writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery vanished in an F-5 while on a reconnaissance mission over Lyon, France, on 31 July 1944. recently, a French scuba diver found the wreckage of a Lightning in the Mediterranean off the coast of Marseille in 2000, and it was confirmed in April 2004 as Saint-Exupery's.

The RAF's legendary photo-recon "ace," Wing Commander Adrian Warburton DSO DFC, was the pilot of a Lockheed F-5B borrowed from the USAAF that took off on 12 April 1944 to photograph targets in Germany. W/C Warburton failed to arrive at the rendezvous point and was never seen again. (In 2003, remains uncovered in Germany from a wrecked USAAF F-5B Lightning were found to be his aircraft.)

Despite its mixed career in Europe, the Lightning remained an outstanding success in the Pacific. Freezing cockpits were not a problem in the warm tropics. In fact, since there was no way to open a window while in flight, as it caused buffeting by setting up turbulence through the tailplane, it was often too hot, and pilots would fly stripped down to shorts, tennis shoes, and parachute.

Major Richard Bong in his P-38.

P-38 pilots racked up big scores against the Japanese. Richard I. "Dick" Bong and Thomas J. "Tommy" McGuire of the USAAF competed for the top position, a rivalry made interesting by the contrast in personalities of the two men. Both Bong and McGuire were unbelievably aggressive and fearless in the air. After dogfights, their P-38s would be warped out of shape by overstress. On the ground, they were completely different men. Dick Bong was a modest, quiet, almost shy man, while the egotistical McGuire was "an unpleasant individual with a talent much bigger than he was," as one of his colleagues remembered him.

The famed Charles Lindbergh worked in the South Pacific for Lockheed as an operational test pilot, where he shot down at least one Japanese aircraft with his P-38. He was instrumental in extending the range of the P-38 through improved throttle settings, or engine-leaning techniques, notably by reducing engine RPM to 1600 rpm, which had prior been considered dangerous, because it was thought this would upset the fuel mixture and cause an explosion. He also shared a tent with McGuire. Visitors recalled McGuire ordering Lindbergh around, telling him to run errands as though he were a servant. Lindbergh was sent home after his kill in the P-38 because the Army did not want to risk the press of losing the famous pilot in a war he was not even supposed to be in^{[citation needed]}. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, on the other hand, was supportive of Lindbergh's efforts and impressed with his innovations[1].

Bong was rotated back to the States as America's ace of aces, after making 40 kills. He was killed on 6 August 1945, the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan, when his P-80 Shooting Star jet fighter flamed out on take-off. McGuire had been killed in air combat in January 1945, over the Philippines, after racking up 38 confirmed kills, making him the second-ranking American ace. Both men were awarded the Medal of Honor.

The seventh-ranking American ace, Charles MacDonald, also flew a Lightning against the Japanese, scoring 27 kills in his famous aircraft, the "Putt Putt Maru."

The P-38 fought all around the Pacific, from the Aleutians to New Guinea to Burma and China. A P-38 piloted by Clay Tice was the first American aircraft to land in Japan after VJ-Day, when he and his wingman set down on Nitagahara because his wingman was low on fuel.

The P-38 had several aces that hailed from Alabama, one was Hoyt "Curley" Arnold Eason, who was an excellent pilot and great trainer of hundreds of pilots including Dick Bong (later to become America's all time leading ace). Eason shot down at least five himself. Eason was missing in action 3 March 1942, after the second day of the three-day Bismark Sea battle.

Lightning variants: Pathfinders, Night Fighter, XP-49, XP-58

The Lightning was modified for other roles. In addition to the F-4 and F-5 reconnaissance variants, a number of P-38Js and P-38Ls were field-modified as formation bombing "pathfinders" or "droopsnoots," fitted with a glazed nose with a Norden bombsight, or a H2X radar "bombing through overcast" nose. A pathfinder would lead a formation of other P-38s, each overloaded with two 900 kg (2,000 pound) bombs; the entire formation would release when the pathfinder did.

A number of Lightnings were modified as night fighters. There were several field or experimental modifications with different equipment fits that finally led to the "formal" P-38M night fighter, or "Night Lightning."

75 P-38Ls were modified to the Night Lightning configuration, painted flat-black with conical flash hiders on the guns, an AN/APS-6 radar pod below the nose, and a second cockpit with a raised canopy behind the pilot's canopy for the radar operator. The headroom in the back cockpit was limited, requiring radar operators who were preferably short in stature.

The additional external clutter imposed surprisingly little penalty on the P-38M's performance; it was faster than the purpose-built Northrop P-61 Black Widow night fighter. The Night Lightnings saw some combat duty in the Pacific towards the end of the war, but, verifiably, none engaged in combat.

Lockheed also built two sister designs to the P-38: the XP-49 and the XP-58 Chain Lightning.

In spring 1939, the Air Corps issued a request for an advanced twin-engine interceptor, to be derived from an existing type and fitted with advanced high-performance engines. Lockheed responded to the request with the Model 222, based on the L22 except for a pressurized cabin, to be powered by 24-cylinder inline Pratt & Whitney X-1800-SA2-G engines, then in development and expected to provide over 2,000 hp (1,500 kW). The Model 222 was to be armed with four 12.7 mm and two 20 mm guns, and a P-38G was modified to test this armament fit.

The Model 222 won the competition, the Air Corps ordering a single prototype as the XP-49 in October 1939. Lockheed proposed production P-49s be fitted with turbocharged Wright R-2160 Tornado radials with 2,300 hp (1,720 kW) each, which would give the P-49 an estimated performance of 800 km/h (500 mi/h) at altitude.

Work on the XP-49 went slowly as Lockheed was caught up in the prewar US military buildup. As development work plodded along, both the Air Corps and Lockheed began to have doubts for various reasons about the powerful engines to be fitted to the aircraft, and so the design was changed to incorporate two Continental XIV-1430-9/11 12-cylinder inverted-vee engines with 1,540 hp (1,150 kW) each for takeoff.

Engine availability further delayed development of the aircraft, and the XP-49 didn't take to the air until April 1942. The XP-49 looked much like a P-38, except for increased length and longer nacelles; the two aircraft shared about two-thirds of their parts. The aircraft was evaluated into the summer of 1943, but the Continental engines were troublesome.

Some sources claim the XP-49 had few if any performance advantages over existing P-38 production, others cite a test pilot as saying it "fly rings around the Lightning," but whatever the case, the USAAF abandoned all plans to put the XP-49 into production. The single prototype was used for occasional tests, including being dropped from a crane to simulate hard landings, and was finally scrapped in 1946.

The XP-58 actually started life in the spring of 1940 as an advanced escort fighter version of the P-38, with the development at the request of the USAAF. Single-seat and two-seat versions were considered, with the two-seat version fitted with addition turret-mounted armament.

The single-seat version was quickly abandoned, and the two-seat version went through a number of radical design changes, particularly with regards to engine fit. With the outbreak of the Pacific War in December 1941, the project was more or less put on the "back burner," with most of the staff moved to higher-priority projects.

The USAAF then began to flip-flop on their requirements, redefining the XP-58 as a ground attack aircraft, then a bomber, then an interceptor, with a bewildering variety of equipment fits considered. The single XP-58 prototype finally flew on 6 June 1944.

The XP-58 was a much more radical departure from the original P-38 design than the XP-49. While the XP-58 had the general Lightning configuration, nobody could have mistaken it for a Lightning. It was a monster, more on the scale of the Northrop P-61 Black Widow night fighter, and powered by two 24 cylinder Allison V-3420-11 inline engines with 2,100 hp (1,570 kW) each.

The XP-58 was to mount four 37 mm fixed forward-firing cannon and two remote-control barbettes, each with two 12.7 mm machine guns, mounted at the rear of the crew nacelle. An alternate forward armament of two 12.7 mm machine guns and a 75 mm cannon, for breaking up bomber formations, was also considered, but in reality no armament was ever fitted.

By the time the prototype flew, the USAAF had completely lost interest in the project, leading to a short and undistinquished flight test program. A second prototype was never completed, and the one flying example was scrapped after the war.

Lightning in twilight

Col. MacDonald and Al Nelson in the Pacific.

The end of the war left the USAAF with thousands of war-weary P-38s on their hands, rendered obsolete by the jet age. 50 late-model Lightnings were provided to Italy and operated for several years, with a dozen sold to Honduras. The others were put up for sale for US$1,200 apiece to whoever wanted one, and the rest were scrapped.

Lockheed test pilot Tony LeVier was among those who came up with the money to buy a P-38, turning it into an air racer. The Lightning was a popular contender in the air races from 1946 through 1949, with brightly colored Lightnings making screaming turns around the pylons.

F-5s were bought by aerial survey companies and used for aerial mapping. From the 1950s on, however, the use of the Lightning steadily declined, and, today, only a little more than two dozen exist, with a handful still flying. One particularly pretty example is a P-38L owned by the Lone Star Flight Museum in Galveston, Texas, painted in the colors of Charles MacDonald's Putt Putt Maru.

The P-38's final report card gave somewhat mixed grades. On the negative side, most variants were certainly harder to fly than the best single-engine fighters and in early models, pilots suffered badly from the cold in northern climates, and their twin supercharged Allisons were temperamental. A good portion of Lightnings lost during the war were brought down by engine difficulties rather than the enemy, with unscheduled engine changes common, which contributed to the plane's relatively low kill-ratio. Up until the "J-25" variant, P-38's were often sitting ducks to Luftwaffe fighters because of the problematic engines and the lack of dive flaps to counter compressibility in dives. German fighter pilots would often go into steep dives because they knew that the Lightnings would be reluctant to follow.

Early variants did not have reputations for being maneuverable aircraft, though they could be surprisingly agile at low altitudes if flown by a good pilot with specific tactics. But when the P-38F arrived, equipped with flaps called "fowler flaps," the P-38 had a much-improved turn radius. When deployed at eight degrees, these flaps could allow the P-38 to turn extremely tightly compared to any fighter, although the flaps could induce enough drag to slow down the plane significantly if left open for too long. The addition of hydraulically-operated control surfaces also improved roll rate and response in the P-38J-25. Nevertheless, the Lightning's real virtues were long range, heavy payload, high speed, fast climb and concentrated firepower.

Clustering all the armament in the nose meant that unlike most other US aircraft with wing-mounted guns, where the trajectories were set up to criss-cross at several points in a "convergence zone," Lightning pilots had to be good shots. For example, Dick Bong would fly recklessly in towards his targets to make sure he hit them, in some cases flying through the debris of his victim. However, the nose-mounted guns did not suffer from having their useful ranges limited by pattern convergence, meaning good pilots could shoot much farther. A Lightning could reliably hit targets at any range from point-blank to 1,000 yards, whereas other fighters had to pick a single convergence range between 100 and 250 yards. The clustered weapons had a "buzz-saw" effect on the receiving end, making the aircraft terrifyingly effective for strafing as well.

Over 10,000 Lightnings were manufactured in all; it was one of the few combat aircraft that had been in production at the beginning of the war that was still in production at the end. The Lightning had a major effect on other aircraft. One example is the fact that the Lightning's wing (in a scaled-up form) was used on the Model 49 Constellation.^[2]

Unusual Lightning variants

There were a number of oddball experimental modifications of the Lightning:

One of the initial production P-38s had its turbochargers removed, with a secondary cockpit placed in one of the booms to examine how flightcrew would respond to such an "asymmetric" cockpit layout. One P-38E was fitted with an extended central nacelle to accommodate a tandem-seat cockpit with dual controls, and was later fitted with a laminar flow wing.

Very early in the Pacific War, a scheme was proposed to fit Lightnings with floats to allow them to make long-range ferry flights. The floats would be removed before the aircraft went into combat. There were concerns that salt spray would corrode the tailplane, and so one P-38E was modified with a raised tailplane and a rearward-facing second seat for an observer to monitor the effectiveness of the new arrangement. This P-38E was not actually fitted with floats, and the idea was quickly abandoned as the US Navy proved to have enough sealift capacity to keep up with P-38 deliveries to the South Pacific.

Still another P-38E was used in 1942 to tow a Waco troop glider as a demonstration. There proved to be plenty of other aircraft, such as C-47s, available to tow gliders, and the Lightning was spared this duty.

An F-5A was modified to an experimental two-seat reconnaissance configuration, with additional cameras in the tail booms.

To try and cure tail flutter and compressibility problems, one P-38 was modified with upswept tail booms in a "scorpion's tail" arrangement.

Standard Lightnings were even used as crew and cargo transports in the South Pacific. They were fitted with pods attached to the underwing pylons, replacing drop tanks or bombs, that could carry a single passenger in a lying-down position or cargo. This was a very uncomfortable way to fly. Some of the pods weren't even fitted with a window to let the victim see out or bring in light. One fellow who hitched a lift on a P-38 in one of these pods later said that whoever designed the damn thing should have been forced to ride in it.

Lockheed proposed a carrier-based Model 822 version of the Lightning for the United States Navy. The Model 822 would have featured folding wings, an arresting hook, and stronger undercarriage for carrier operations. The Navy wasn't interested, as they regarded the Lightning as too big for carrier operations and didn't like liquid-cooled engines anyway, and the Model 822 never went beyond the paper stage. However, the Navy did operate four land-based F-5Bs in North Africa, with these aircraft inherited from the USAAF and redesignated "FO-1."

A single P-38G was captured intact by the Italians during the war when the pilot accidentally landed at an Italian base, and this Lightning was flown in combat against Allied aircraft, but this aircraft was quickly grounded due to lack of parts. Two Lightnings that were forced to land in Lisbon, Portugal, while on a ferry flight from England to Algeria were interned and operated by the Portuguese.

A P-38J was used in experiments with an unusual scheme for mid-air refueling, in which the fighter snagged a drop tank trailed on a cable from a bomber. Astonishingly, they got this to work, but unsurprisingly decided it wasn't practical. A P-38J was also fitted with experimental retractable snow ski landing gear, but this idea never reached operational service, either.

A P-38L was modified by Hindustan Aeronautics in India as a fast VIP transport, with a comfortable seat in the nose, leather-lined walls, accommodations for "refreshments," and a glazed nose to give the passenger a spectacular view.

After the war, a P-38L was experimentally fitted with armament of three 15.2 mm (0.60 in) machine guns. This sounds like a misprint, but such guns were actually developed. The 15.2 mm cartridge had been developed early in the war for an infantry "anti-tank rifle," a type of weapon developed by a number of nations in the 1930s when tanks were lighter, but by 1942 the idea of taking on a tank with a large-caliber rifle was somewhere between "outdated" and "suicidal."

The cartridge wasn't abandoned, with the Americans designing a derivative of the German MG 151 15 mm machine gun around it and designating the weapon the "T17," but though 300 of these guns were built and over six million 15.2 mm rounds were manufactured, they never worked out all the bugs, and the T17 never saw operational service. The cartridge was "necked up" to fit 20 mm projectiles and became a standard US ammunition after the war. The T17-armed P-38L did not go beyond unsuccessful trials.

Another P-38L was modified after the war as a "super strafer," with eight 12.7 mm machine guns in the nose and a pod under each wing with two 12.7 mm guns, for a total of twelve. Nothing came of this fit, either.

Military operators

(Wartime): Australia (RAAF), China, France, Portugal, United Kingdom (RAF), United States
(Post-War): Italy, Honduras.

"Glacier Girl" at Oshkosh, 2005

Survivors

P-38F s/n 417630 was one of six P-38 fighters and two B-17 bombers being flown to Europe seven months after the United States entered the Second World War. When bad weather caused the eight aircraft to turn back while enroute over Greenland, the entire flight attempted to land together before they ran out of fuel. Although one P-38 overturned, the flight successfully belly-landed. The crews were rescued within a few days, but the airplanes were abandoned and over the years, they were covered by ice. A few attempts to salvage the airplanes were made but were unsuccessful.

Eventually, Roy Shoffner, a Middlesboro, Kentucky businessman, acquired the salvage rights and in 1992, 50 years and one month after the planes landed, a P-38 recovery mission was undertaken. Using photos taken by the original crews while they were awaiting rescue as well as modern seismographic equipment, the salvage workers located the buried squadron and selected the least damaged of the planes. They reached it by boring a hole using hot water through the layer of ice 268 feet thick. The airplane was transported to Middlesboro, where a 10-year restoration began. Nicknamed "Glacier Girl," the restored P-38F Lightning made its first post-restoration flight on 26 October 2002.

Specifications (P-38L)

General characteristics

Crew: One
Length: 37 ft 10 in (11.53 m)
Wingspan: 52 ft 0 in (15.85 m)
Height: 9 ft 10 in (3.00 m)
Wing area: 327.5 ft² (30.43 m²)
Airfoil: NACA 23016 / NACA 4412
Empty weight: 12,780 lb (5,800 kg)
Loaded weight: 17,500 lb (7,940 kg)
Max takeoff weight: 21,600 lb (9,798 kg)
Powerplant: 2× Allison V-1710-111/113 liquid-cooled turbosupercharged V-12, 1,600 hp (1,194 kW) each
Zero-lift drag coefficient: 0.0268

Drag area: 8.78 ft² (0.82 m²)
Aspect ratio: 8.26

Performance

Maximum speed: 414 mph at 25,000 ft (667 km/h at 7,620 m)
Stall speed: 105 mph (170 km/h)
Range: 1,100 mi combat, 2,600 mi ferry (1,770 km / 3,640 km)
Service ceiling: 44,000 ft (13,400 m)
Rate of climb: maximum: 4,750 ft/min (1,448 m/min)
Wing loading: 53.4 lb/ft² (260.9 kg/m²)
Power/mass: 0.16 hp/lb (0.27 kW/kg)

Lift-to-drag ratio: 13.5

Armament

1x Hispano M2(C) 20 mm cannon with 150 rounds (2 AP, 2 tracer and 2 HE ammo belt composition) and 4x Colt-Browning MG53-2 0.50 in (12.7 mm) machine guns with 500 rounds per gun. The rate of fire was about 650 rounds per minute for the 20x110 mm cannon round (130 g shell) at a muzzle velocity of about 880 m/s, and for the 12.7x99 mm MGs (43-48 g), about 850 rpm at 840 m/s velocity.
4x M10 three-tube 4.5 in (112 mm) rocket launchers or:
10x 5 in (127 mm) HVAR's (High Velocity Aircraft Rocket) and/or:
either 2x 2,000 lb (908 kg) or 2x 1,000 lb (454 kg), 4x 500 lb (227 kg) or 4x 250 lb (114 kg) bombs

Ruth Dailey, WASP climbs into a P-38.

Lockheed Lodestar

2006-12-14T00:49:00.001-08:00

Lockheed Lodestar

The Lockheed 18 Lodestar was a passenger transport aircraft of the Second World War era. The prototype, which first flew in 1939, was constructed from one of a batch of Lockheed L-14 Super Electras which had been returned to the manufacturer by Northwest Airlines after a series of crashes of L-14s. The fuselage was lengthened by 5 feet (1.5 m), enabling the fitting of two more rows of seats and hopefully making the aircraft more economical to operate. However, most US airlines were by then committed to purchasing the Douglas DC-3, and Lockheed found the Lodestar difficult to sell at home.

Overseas sales were a little better, with 29 bought by the government of the Netherlands East Indies. South African Airways (21), Trans-Canada Air Lines (12) and BOAC (9) were the biggest airline customers. Various Pratt & Whitney and Wright Cyclone powerplants were installed.

When the United States started to build up its military air strength in 1940-41, American operated and part-built Lodestars were impressed for Army or Navy services under various designations. Lend lease aircraft were used by the RNZAF as transports. Post war, many of the New Zealand aircraft were later used for aerial topdressing.

Lockheed Lodestar

Description
Role	Transport
Crew	3
First flight	September 21, 1939
Entered service	March 30, 1940
Manufacturer	Lockheed
Dimensions
Length	49 ft 10 in	15.2 m
Wingspan	65 ft 6 in	20 m
Height	11 ft 10 in	3.6 m
Wing area	551 ft²	51.2 m²
Weights
Empty	12,000 lb	5,440 kg
Loaded	17,500 lb	7,940 kg
Maximum takeoff	lb	kg
Capacity	14 passengers
Powerplant
Engine	2 × Pratt & Whitney Hornet S1C3-G
Power (each)	1,050 hp	780 kW
Performance
Maximum speed	265 mph @ 13,300 ft	426 km/h @ 4,050 m
Combat range	1,700 miles	2,740 km
Ferry range	km	miles
Service ceiling	25,400 ft	7,740 m
Rate of climb	1,600 ft/min	490 m/min

US Army Lodestars

C-56 (1) with 760hp Wright R-1820.
C-56A, C-56B, C-56C, C-56D, C-56E (25 in all) with Pratt & Whitney R-1690
C-57A, C-57B (1+7) with Pratt & Whitney R-1830. The C-57Bs were converted as troop ships.
C-57C (3) Repowered C-60A with Pratt & Whitney R-1830-51.
C-57D (1) Repowered C-57A with Pratt & Whitney R-1830-92.
C-59 (10) with Pratt & Whitney R-1690 Hornet. Transferred to RAF as Lodestar Mk.IA.
C-60 (36) with Wright R-1820-87. Transferred to RAF as Lodestar Mk.II.
C-60A (125) with Pratt & Whitney R-1830 Twin Wasp. Ordered by the Army as troop-carriers.
XC-60B (1) C-60A with experimental de-icing equipment.
C-60C (None) Proposed 21-seat troop transport aircraft, never built.
C-66 (1) as C-60, transferred to Brazilian Air force.

US Navy Lodestars

XR5O-1 (1) 1,200 hp (895 kW) Wright R-1820-40.
R5O-1 (3) 1,200 (895 kW) Wright R-1820-97. One was for the US Coast Guard.
R5O-2 (1) 850 hp (634 kW) Pratt & Whitney R-1690-25
R5O-3 (2) 1,200 hp (895 kW) Pratt & Whitney R-1830-34A. Originally 4-seater VIP transports.
R5O-4 (12) 1,200 hp (895 kW) Wright R-1820-40. Impressed. 7-seater staff transports.
R5O-5 (14) 1,200 hp (895 kW) Wright R-1820-40. Similar to the R5O-4 but had 14-seats.
R5O-6 (35) Transferred USAAF C-60A-5-LOs transferred to the USN (US Marine Corps). 18 paratroop seats.

Lodestars also served with the Royal Air Force, Royal Australian Air Force, Royal Canadian Air Force, Royal New Zealand Air Force, South African Air Force, plus the Brazilian Air Force, Netherland East Indies Air Force.

A total of 625 Lodestars of all variants were built. After the war they returned to civilian service, mostly as executive transports, or in aerial topdressing. Around 10-15 are still airworthy in the USA alone.

Lockheed Ventura

2006-12-14T00:46:00.002-08:00

Lockheed Ventura

Lockheed PV-1 Ventura

The Lockheed Ventura was a bomber and patrol aircraft of World War II, used by United States and British Commonwealth forces in several guises. It was developed from the Lockheed Lodestar transport, as a replacement for the Lockheed Hudson bombers then in service with the Royal Air Force. The RAF ordered 675 Venturas in February 1940. They were delivered from mid-1942 onwards.

Variants

Lockheed Ventura/B-34 Lexington

The Ventura was very similar to its predecessor, the Hudson. The primary difference was not in layout; rather, the Ventura was larger and heavier than the Hudson. Venturas were initially used for daylight raids on occupied Europe. They proved unsuited to this task, because (like many other bombers used by the RAF), they were too vulnerable with no long-range fighter escorts, being replaced in this role by the de Havilland Mosquito. The Venturas were gradually transferred to patrol duties with Coastal Command.

The RAF placed a further order for 487 Ventura Mark IIs, but many of these were diverted to United States Army Air Forces service. The U.S. Army Air Force placed its own order for 200 Ventura Mark IIA, which were put into service as the B-34 Lexington. Later redesignated RB-34.

Lockheed B-37

In 1941 August, large orders for Venturas were placed with Lend-Lease Act money. Among the orders were for 550 armed reconnaissance versions of the Ventura. This plane was originally planned to be built under the designation O-56. The main differences between the Ventura and the O-56 were in the engines: rather than the 2,000 hp (1,490 kW) Pratt and Whitney R-2800 radials of the Ventura, the O-56 used 1,700 hp (1,270 kW) Wright R-2600-13 radials.

Before completion of the first O-56, the U.S. Army Air Force dropped the O- category used to designate 'observation' (reconnaissance) planes. The O-56 was redesignated the RB-34B (RB- for 'reconnaissance bomber'). Before the first of these flew, the design was redesignated again as the B-37, because it used different engines.

While 550 were ordered by the Army Air Force, acquisition by the USAAF stopped after only 18 were accepted, when the Army Air Force agreed to turn over exclusive use of the Ventura to the United States Navy (see Naval Service below).

PV-1 Ventura

The PV-1 Ventura, built by the Vega Aircraft Company division of Lockheed (hence the 'V' Navy manufacturer's letter that later replaced the 'O' for Lockheed), was a version of the Ventura built for the U.S. Navy (see Venturas in U.S. Navy service below). The main differences between the PV-1 and the B-34 were the inclusion of special equipment in the PV-1, adapting it to its patrol-bombing role. The maximum fuel capacity of the PV-1 was increased from 1345 gal to 1607 gal, to increase its range; the forward defensive armament was also reduced for this reason. The most important addition was of an ASD-1 search radar.

Early production PV-1s still carried a bombardier's station behind the nose radome, with four side windows and a flat bomb-aiming panel underneath the nose. Late production PV-1s dispensed with this bombardier position and replaced it with a pack with three 0.50 inch (12.7 mm) machine guns underneath the nose. These aircraft could also carry eight 5 in (127 mm) HVAR rockets on launchers underneath the wings.

The PV-1 began to be delivered in 1942 December, and entered service in 1943 February. The first squadron in combat was VP-135, deployed in the Aleutian Islands in 1943 April. They were operated by three other squadrons in this theatre. From the Aleutians, they flew strikes against bases in Paramushiro and Shimushu, Japanese islands in the Kurile chain. Often, PV-1s would lead B-24 bomber formations, since they were equipped with radar. In late 1943, some PV-1s were deployed to the Solomon Islands.

PV-2 Harpoon

The PV-2 Harpoon was a major redesign of the Ventura with the wing area increased from 551 ft² (51.2 m²) to 686 ft² (63.7 m²) giving an increased load-carrying capability. The motivation for redesign was weaknesses in the PV-1, since it had shown to have poor-quality takeoffs when carrying a full load of fuel. On the PV-2, the armament became standardised at five forward-firing machine guns. Many early PV-1s had a bombardier's position, which was deleted in the PV-2. Some other significant developments included the increase of the bombload by 30% to 4,000 lb (1,800 kg). Another development was the ability to carry eight 5 in (127 mm) HVAR rockets under the wings.

While the PV-2 was expected to have increased range and better takeoff, the anticipated speed statistics were project lower than those of the PV-1, due to the use of the same engines but an increase in weight. The Navy ordered 500 examples, designating them with the popular name Harpoon.

Early tests indicated a tendency for the wings to wrinkle dangerously. As this problem could not be solved by a 6 ft (1.8 m) reduction in wingspan (making the wing uniformly flexible), a complete redesign of the wing was necessitated. This hurdle delayed entry of the PV-2 into service. The PV-2s already delivered were used for training purposes under the designation PV-2C. By the end of 1944, only 69 PV-2s had been delivered. They finally resumed when the redesign was complete. The first aircraft shipped were the PV-2D, which had 8 forward-firing machine guns and was used in ground attacks. When World War II ended, all of the order was cancelled.

With the wing problems fixed, the PV-2 proved reliable, and eventually popular. It was first used in the Aleutians by VP-139, one of the squadrons that originally used the PV-1. It was used by a number of countries after the war’s end, but the United States ceased ordering new PV-2s, and they were all soon retired from service.

Operational history

Royal Air Force

387 PV-1s were used by the RAF as the Ventura G.R.V. They were used in the Mediterranean and by the Coastal Command. Some RAF aircraft were modified into Ventura C.V transport aircraft. The Ventura Mark I was first delivered to the Royal Air Force in 1941 September, and flew its first combat mission on 1942 November 3, against a factory in Hengelo, the Netherlands. On 1942 December 6, 47 Venturas engaged in a daylight, low-altitude attack against Eindhoven, also in the Netherlands. This was the primary event that demonstrated the Ventura's weakness in such raids: of the 47, nine of the bombers were downed. Following this tragedy, tactics were switched to medium-altitude raids. The Ventura faired little better in this strategy. During one attack on a power station in Amsterdam on 1943 May 3, New Zealand's 487 Squadron were told the target was of such importance attack was to be continued regardless of opposition. All ten Venturas to cross the coast were lost to German fighters. Squadron Leader Leonard Trent, (later the last of the Great Escapers), won the Victoria Cross for his leadership in this raid.

It was never a very popular plane among RAF crews, and despite the fact that it was 50 mph (80 km/h) faster and carried more than twice as many bombs as its predecessor, the Hudson, it proved ill-suited to its task as a bomber. By the summer of 1943, the Ventura had been phased out of service in favour of the de Havilland Mosquito. Its last mission was flown by 21 Squadron on 1943 September 9. After leaving bombardment service, a number were modified to be use by the Coastal Command; they served as the Ventura G.R.I.

A small number of Venturas were also used in other countries, including Canada the Royal New Zealand Air Force and South Africa.

Royal Australian Air Force

55 PV-1s were used by the RAAF in the South West Pacific Area, serving primarily in New Guinea. Initially, air crews and ground staff disliked the Ventura, preferring the B-25 Mitchell. But in many cases, the PV-1 had developed a grudging respect from its operators.

Royal Canadian Air Force

Venturas were in use by the RCAF from 16 June, 1942 to 18 April, 1947 in the home defence coastal patrol role in both Eastern and Western Air Command. They were flown by 8, 113, 115, 145, and 149 Squadrons, as well as by 1 Central Flying School, Trenton, Ontario, and by No. 34 Operational Training Unit, at Penfield Ridge, New Brunswick.

A total of 21 Mk. I, 108 Mk. II, and 157 G.R. Mk. V were in service during this period for a grand total of 286 aircraft.

South African Air Force

The South African Air Force also received some 135 PV-1s, which were used to protect shipping around the Cape of Good Hope, and to bomb Italian shipping in the Mediterranean. They were used by the South African Air Force up to 1960.

Royal New Zealand Air Force

From August 1942 No. 487 Squadron RNZAF, (operating in Europe as part of the Royal Air Force), was equipped with the type, although losses (including on 3 May 1943 the loss of all 11 aircraft attacking Amsterdam), lead to their replacement with the de Havilland Mosquito in June. The Royal New Zealand Air Force in the Pacific received 139 Venturas and some Harpoons from June 1943 to replace Lockheed Hudsons in the maritime patrol bomber and medium bomber roles. Initially Venturas were unpopular with the RNZAF, due to rumoured poor performance on one engine, and the fate of Leonard TrentV.C.'s 487 Squadron, as well as the failure of the U.S. to provide New Zealand with promised B-24 Liberators. Despite this, the RNZAF Venturas came to be amongst the most widely used of any nations, seeing substantial action until VJ day over South West Pacific islands.

The first 19 RB34s arrived by sea from the U.S. in June had much equipment either missing or damaged. 6 airworthy machines were hurriedly produced by cannabilisation and sent into action with No. 3 Squadron RNZAF in Fiji. On June 26 the first PV.1s were flown to Whenuapai and No. 1 Squadron RNZAF was able to convert to 18 of these by 1 August, replacing the mixed 3 squadron in action at Henderson Field, Guadacanal in late October. By this time No. 2 Squadron RNZAF at Ohakea and No. 9 squadron RNZAF were also using the type. The following year No. 4 Squadron RNZAF and No. 8 Squadron RNZAF also received Venturas. Some squadrons were retained on 'garrison' duty, while others followed the allied advance to Emirau and Green Island and New Britain. RNZAF Venturas were tasked with routine patrols, anti shipping strikes, minelaying, bombing and strafing missions, air sea rescue patrols, photographic reconnaissance, and in an apparently bizarre case of taking Lockheed marketing's slogan of "The Fighter-Bomber" too literally, even (briefly) fighter sweeps.

RNZAF machines did often clash with Japanese fighters, notably during an air-sea rescue patrol on Christmas Eve 1943, NZ4509 was attacked by nine Japanese single engined fighters over St.George's Channel. It shot down three later confirmed and claimed two others as probables, although being heavily damaged in the action. The pilot, Flying officer D Ayson and navigator Warrant Officer W Williams were awarded the DFC, the dorsal turret gunner Flight Sergeant G. Hannah was awarded the DFM.

By late 1944 the Ventura began to be phased out of frontline action, as the RNZAF backed away from the Patrol bomber concept, orders for PV 2 Harpoons being cancelled after a handful or aircraft had been delivered. At V.J. Day, only 30 PV-1 s remained on the front line with 3 Squadron at Jacquinot Bay.

Planned re-equipment with Mosquitoes did not take place until after the cessation of hostilities. 2 Squadron was the last Ventura unit, continuing to operate PV1s and 2s on meteorological duty until 1948. A restored RNZAF RB34 (NZ4600) is owned by the Museum of Transport and Technology in Auckland.

United States Army Air Forces

Some 264 Ventura Mark IIs ordered by the RAF were seized by the U.S. Army Air Force. Though some were used as anti-submarine patrol bombers under the designation B-34 Lexington, most were used for training with various stateside units. 27 of these were used by the United States Navy for anti-submarine patrols as well; these were designated PV-1 Ventura and PV-2 Harpoon.

United States Navy

During the early months of 1942, the primary responsibility for anti-submarine warfare in the United States was shouldered by the Army Air Force. This irked the Navy, as it considered this region of battle its burden. To carry out such a task, the Navy was pursuing a long-range, land-based patrol and reconnaissance aircraft with a substantial bombload. This goal was always resisted by the Army Air Force, which carefully protected its monopoly on land-based bombing. This forced the navy to use long-range floatplanes for these roles. The Navy was unable to upgrade to better planes until the Army Air Force needed the Navy plant in Renton, Washington to manufacture its B-29 Superfortress. In exchange for use of the Renton plant, the Army Air Force would discontinue its objections to Naval land-based bombers, and provide planes to the Navy. One of the clauses of this agreement stated that production of the B-34 and B-37 by Lockheed would cease, and instead these resources would be directed at building a navalised version, the PV-1 Ventura.

The PV-1 began to be delivered in 1942 December, and entered service in 1943 February. The first squadron in combat was VP-135, deployed in the Aleutian Islands in 1943 April. They were operated by three other squadrons in this theatre. From the Aleutians, they flew strikes against Paramushiro, a Japanese island. Often, PV-1s would lead B-24 bomber formations, since they were equipped with radar. In late 1943, some PV-1s were deployed to the Solomon Islands.

After the war the US Navy deemed many PV-1's as obsolete and the aircraft were sent to Naval Air Station Clinton, OK to be demilitarized and reduced to scrap..

Other operators

Brazil
Italy
Japan
The Netherlands
Peru
Portugal
Famous Venturas and crew members
Bomber 31 — a US Navy PV-1 which in March 1944 carried out the second bombing mission against Japan during World War II. The plane crashed in Russia, with the loss of its crew, following the raid.
Gough Whitlam, later Prime Minister of Australia (1972-75), served as a navigator with No. 13 Squadron RAAF.

Specifications (B-34 Lexington)

General characteristics

Crew: 6
Length: 51 ft 5 in (15.7 m)
Wingspan: 65 ft 6 in (20 m)
Height: 11 ft 10 in (3.6 m)
Wing area: 551 ft² (51.2 m²)
Empty weight: 20,197 lb (9,160 kg)
Loaded weight: 31,000 lb (14,000 kg)
Max takeoff weight: 34,000 lb (15,000 kg)
Powerplant: 2× Pratt & Whitney R-2800 geared radial engines, 2,000 hp (1,500 kW) each

Performance

Maximum speed: 322 mph (518 km/h)
Cruise speed: 230 mph (370 km/h)
Range: 1,660 mi (2,670 km) combat; 2,600 mi (4,200 km) ferry
Service ceiling: 26,300 ft (8,020 m)
Rate of climb: 2,035 ft/min (15.4 m/s)
Wing loading: 56.4 lb/ft² (275 kg/m²)
Power/mass: 0.13 hp/lb (0.21 kW/kg)

Armament

Guns:
4× .50-caliber (12.7 mm) machine guns
2× .30-caliber (7.6 mm) machine guns

Bombs:
3,000 lb (1,400 kg) general ordnance or
6× 325 lb (147 kg) depth charges or
1× torpedo

Lockheed Model 14 Super Electra

2006-12-14T00:46:00.001-08:00

Lockheed Model 14 Super Electra

The Lockheed Model 14 Super Electra was a civil cargo and passenger aircraft built by the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation during the late 1930s. The design was a scaled-up version of the original Electra; the design team was lead by Don Palmer. The first Model 14 flew on July 29, 1937, piloted by Marshall Headle. Lockheed built a total of 114 Model 14s; another 119 were built under license in Japan.

The Model 14 entered commercial service with Northwest Airlines in October 1937. Aircraft were exported for use by Aer Lingus of Ireland, BOAC of Britain, Union Airways and National Airways Corporation (NAC) of New Zealand.

Howard Hughes flew a Super Electra (NX18973) on a global circumnavigation flight. With four crewmates (Harry Connor, copilot and navigator; Tom Thurlow, navigator; Richard Stoddart, radio operator; and Ed Lund, flight engineer), the plane took off from Floyd Bennett Field in New York on July 10, 1938. The flight, which circled the narrower northern latitudes, passed through Paris, Moscow, Omsk, Yakutsk, Fairbanks, Alaska, and Minneapolis, before returning to New York on July 14. The total distance was 14,672 mi (23,612 km).

The Model 14 was the basis for development of the Lockheed Hudson maritime reconnaissance and light bomber aircraft operated by the Royal Air Force, USAAF, United States Navy and many others during the Second World War.

Specifications (Model 14-WF62 Super Electra)

General characteristics

Crew: two pilots
Capacity: 12 passengers
Length: 44 ft 4 in (13.52 m)
Wingspan: 65 ft 6 in (19.97 m)
Height: 11 ft 5 in (3.48 m)
Wing area: 551 ft² (51.2 m²)
Empty: 10,750 lb (4,886 kg)
Loaded: 15,650 lb (7,114 kg)
Maximum takeoff: 17,500 lb (7,955 kg)
Powerplant: 2x Wright SGR-1820-F62 radial engines, 760 hp (567 kW) each

Performance

Maximum speed: 250 mph (402 km/h)
Range: 2,125 miles (3,420 km)
Service ceiling: 24,500 ft (7,649 m)
Rate of climb: ft/min ( m/min)
Wing loading: 28 lb/ft² (139 kg/m²)
Power/Mass: 0.10 hp/lb (0.16 kW/kg)

Lockheed Model 12 Electra Junior

2006-12-14T00:44:00.000-08:00

Lockheed Model 12 Electra Junior

The Lockheed 12 Electra Junior was an eight place, six passenger all-metal transport designed for use by smaller airlines and private owners. Developed as a scaled-down version of the Lockheed 10 Electra, the prototype made its first flight on June 27, 1936, piloted by Marshall Headle.

British Airways ordered two Electra Juniors in 1939. Although ostensibly acquired for civilian purposes, these aircraft were modified for aerial photography and used by Sidney Cotton to track Axis military activity on the eve of World War II.

A modified Electra Junior was used by the NACA as a testbed for "hotwing" deicing technology.

On screen

An Electra Junior appeared in the film Casablanca. Wartime security precautions prevented shooting at an airport at night, so a cardboard cutout stood in for a real airplane in many shots.

Specifications (12A Electra Junior)

General characteristics

Crew: two pilots
Capacity: 6 passengers
Length: 36 ft 4 in (11.07 m)
Wingspan: 49 ft 6 in (15.09 m)
Height: 9 ft 9 in (2.97 m)
Wing area: 352 ft² (32.7 m²)
Empty: 5,765 lb (2,615 kg)
Loaded: 8,650 lb (3,924 kg)
Maximum takeoff: lb ( kg)
Powerplant: 2× Pratt & Whitney R-985-48 radials, 450 hp (336 kW) each

Performance

Maximum speed: 225 mph (362 km/h)
Range: 800 miles (1,287 km)
Service ceiling: 22,900 ft (6,980 m)
Rate of climb: 1,140 ft/min (427 m/min)
Wing loading: 25 lb/ft² (120 kg/m²)
Power/mass: 0.10 hp/lb (0.17 kW/kg)

Douglas DC-2

2006-12-14T00:43:00.000-08:00

Douglas DC-2

Douglas DC-2

DC-2 PH-AJU came second in the MacRobertson Air Race
Type	Passenger & military transport
Manufacturer	Douglas Aircraft Company, Fokker
Maiden flight	May 11, 1934
Introduced	May 18, 1934
Primary users	United States (USAAC, USAAF, USMC, USN) Military users - Australia (RAAF), Finland, Germany, Spain, United Kingdom.

The Douglas DC-2 was a 14 seat, twin-propeller airliner produced by the Douglas Aircraft Corporation starting in 1934. It competed with the Boeing 247. In 1936 Douglas produced a larger version called the DC-3, which became one of the most successful airplanes in history.

In the early 1930s fears about the safety of wooden structured aircraft (implicated in the crash of a Fokker tri-motor which killed Knute Rockne) led the American aviation industry to look into implementing aircraft of all-metal construction. With United Airlines having a monopoly on the Boeing 247, the rival Transcontinental and Western Air issued a specification for an all-metal trimotor.

The response of the Douglas Aircraft Company was more radical. When it flew on July 1, 1933, the prototype DC-1 had a highly robust tapered wing, a retractable undercarriage, and only two 690 hp (515 kW) Wright radial engines driving variable-pitch propellors. It seated 12 passengers.

TWA accepted the basic design, and placed an order for 20 DC-2s, with more powerful engines and seating 14 passengers. The design impressed a number of American and European airlines and further orders followed. Those for European customers KLM, LOT, Swissair, CLS and LAPE were assembled by Fokker in the Netherlands.

Although overshadowed by its ubiquitous successor, it was the DC-2 which first showed that passenger air travel could be comfortable, safe and reliable. As a token of this, KLM entered their first DC-2 PH-AJU Uiver (Stork) in the October 1934 MacRobertson Air Race between London and Melbourne. Out of the 20 entrants, it finished second behind only the purpose built de Havilland DH.88 racer Grosvenor House. During the total journey time of 90 h 13 min, it was in the air for 81 h 10 min.

156 DC-2s were built.

Modified DC-2s were built for the Army Air Corps under several military designations:
1 XC-32 16-seat transport aircraft, later a flying command post.
18 C-33 Cargo transport aircraft, with a hinged cargo door in the aft fuselage.
2 YC-34 VIP transport. Later designated C-34.
1 C-38 Modified from the C-33 with DC-3 style tail section. Powered by two Wright R-1820-45 radial piston engines, of 930 hp (694 kW) each. It was originally designated C-33A.
35 C-39 A composite of DC-2 & DC-3 components. Powered by two Wright R-1820-55 radial piston engines, of 975 hp (727 kW) each
1 C-41 VIP transport. Powered by two Pratt & Whitney R-1830-21 radial piston engines, of 1200 hp (895 kW) each
1 C-42 VIP transport. Powered by two Wright R-1820-53 radial piston engines, of 1200 hp (895 kW) each, plus two similar converted C-39s.

R2D - One transport aircraft for the US Navy.
R2D-1 - Four transport aircraft for the US Navy.

24 Commercial DC-2s impressed at the start of World War II were designated C-32A.

DC-2A - The designation of two civil DC-2 aircraft, powered by two Pratt & Whitney Hornet radial piston engines.
DC-2B - The designation given to two DC-2 aircraft, sold to the Polish airline LOT. The aircraft were powered by two Bristol Pegasus VI radial piston engines.
Survivors

DC-2 - c/n 1404

There are currently no DC-2s in commercial service. However, at least 4 aircraft made it into the 21st century:
c/n 1404: The Aviodrome museum in Lelystad, the Netherlands owns one of the last flying DC-2. This former US Navy aircraft is painted in the Uiver's KLM colour scheme and is sometimes seen on airshows in Europe.
This aircraft (N39165) is now registered in the United States and based in Houston, TX.
c/n 1368: A former Pan Am aircraft that was used by the Douglas historical foundation until the merger with Boeing in 1997. It is now housed at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington.
This aircraft (N1934D) was recently flown to Santa Maria, California for a new paint job.
c/n 1288: There is a second aircraft in the Netherlands, owned by the Dutch Dakota Association. It is far from airworthy and a lot of work needs to be done before it is. Its first operator was Eastern Air Lines.
One DC-2 is preserved at the Central Finland Aviation Museum. Another wingless fuselage (c/n 1562) is on display at the Finnish Aviation Museum. [1]
c/n 1292: There are three DC-2's surviving in Australia in 2006, this aircraft c/n 1292 is one of ten ex-Eastern Airlines DC-2's purchased and operated by the RAAF during WW2 as A30-9, it is under restoration by The Australian National Aviation Museum

Specifications (DC-2)

General characteristics

Crew: 2-3
Capacity: 14 passengers
Length: 62 ft 6 in (19.1 m)
Wingspan: 85 ft 0 in (25.9 m)
Height: 15 ft 10 in (4.8 m)
Wing area: 940 ft² (87.3 m²)
Empty weight: 12,455 lb (5,650 kg)
Loaded weight: 18,560 lb (8,420 kg)
Powerplant: 2× Wright Cyclone GR-F53 9-cylinder radial engines, 730 hp (540 kW) each

Performance

Maximum speed: 210 mph at 6,800ft (338 km/h)
Combat radius: 1,085 miles (1,750 km)
Service ceiling: 22,750 ft (6,930 m)
Rate of climb: 1,030 ft/min (310 m/min)

LINKS:http://www.planefacts.co.uk/cards/douglas/pages/douglas_dc2_jpg.htm

Lockheed Model 10 Electra

2006-12-14T00:41:00.002-08:00

Lockheed Model 10 Electra

The Lockheed L-10 Electra was a twin-engine, all-metal monoplane airliner developed by the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation in the 1930s to compete with the Boeing 247 and Douglas DC-2.

L-10 Electra/C-36

Amelia Earhart's Electra 10E
Type	Utility aircraft
Manufacturer	Lockheed
Designed by	Hall Hibbard
Maiden flight	February 23, 1934
Number built	149
Variants	Electra Junior Super Electra

History

The Electra was Lockheed's first all-metal and twin-engine design. (However, some of Lockheed's wooden designs, such as the Orion had been built by Detroit Aircraft with metal fuselages.) The name Electra came from a star in the Plieades. The prototype made its first flight on February 23, 1934 with Marshall Headle at the controls.

Wind tunnel work on the Electra was undertaken at the University of Michigan. Much of the work was performed by a student assistant, Clarence Johnson. He suggested two changes be made to the design: changing the single tail to double tails (later a Lockheed trademark), and deleting oversized wing fillets. Both of these suggestions were incorporated into production aircraft. Upon receiving his master's degree, Johnson joined Lockheed as a regular employee, ultimately leading the Skunk Works in developing advanced aircraft such as the SR-71 Blackbird.

Aviatrix Amelia Earhart disappeared in an Electra on an attempted around-the-world flight in 1937.

Later in 1937, H.T. "Dick" Merrill and J.S. Lambie accomplished a round-trip crossing of the Atlantic Ocean; this feat was declared the first round-trip commercial crossing of that ocean, and it won them the Harmon Trophy. On the eastbound trip, they carried newsreels of the crash of the Hindenburg, and on the return trip, the brought photographs of the coronation of King George VI.

In September 1938, a British Airways Electra flew British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to a meeting with German Chancellor Adolf Hitler. Upon returning to Britain, Chamberlain guaranteed "Peace in our time." Less than a year later, World War II broke out with the Nazi invasion of Poland.

Many Electras, and descendants of the design (the L-12 Electra Junior and L-14 Super Electra), were pressed into military service during World War II (as the C-36 with the USAAF). By the end of the war, the Electra design was obsolete.

Variants

The Electra was produced in several variants, for both civilian and military customers. Lockheed built a total of 149 Electras.

Electra 10A

Three built as Y1C-36 / C-36 / UC-36.
Fifteen impressed as C-36A, but later re-designated UC-36A.
Three built as XR20-1 / R20-1 for Secretary of the Navy.
One built as Y1C-37 / C-37 / UC-37 for Chief of National Guard Bureau

Electra 10B

Seven impressed as C-36C, but later re-designated UC-36C.
One built as XR30-1 for use by the Secretary of Treasury, operated by the US Coast Guard.

Electra 10C

Electra 10-D

Proposed military transport version; none built.

Electra 10-E

Five impressed as C-36B, but later re-designated UC-36B

XC-35: Experimental pressurized research model powered by supercharged Pratt & Whitney XR-1340-43, 550 hp (410 kW) each. The one production model was tested for the War Department by Lieutenant Ben Kelsey. For this work, the Army Air Corps was awarded the 1937 Collier Trophy. The XC-35 is currently in storage in the collection of the National Air and Space Museum..

Preserved Electras

Canada is the home of two Model 10As. The first aircraft in the Air Canada (then called Trans-Canada Air Lines) fleet was an Electra L10A, "TCA." Two Electras were delivered to Trans-Canada Air Lines (TCA) in 1937. They were based in Winnipeg and used for pilot training. Trans-Canada Air Lines ordered three more for transcontinental service; "CF-TCC" was one of those three. These former TCA machines and other 10As were acquired by the RCAF during Second World War, and later sold to private operators.

TCA survived into the 1960s when Ann Pellegreno between June 7 and July 10, 1967 flew TCA on a round-the-world flight to commemorate Amelia Earhart’s last flight in 1937. The Canada Aviation Museum acquired this aircraft after the commemorative flight. Manufactured in 1937, the Museum example was the first new aircraft purchased by Trans-Canada Air Lines and served with the company until transferred to the RCAF in 1939. Sold in 1941 to a private operator, it was flown until 1967 by various owners. Air Canada restored the aircraft in 1968 and donated it to the Museum.

L-10A Electra "CF-TCC" in Trans-Canada Air Lines livery at the Western Canada Aviation Museum.

TCC was another former Trans-Canada Air Lines original. CF-TCC was found in Florida by a vacationing Air Canada employee in the early 1980s. Arrangements were made for it to be brought back to Winnipeg where it was restored. It was flown across Canada in 1987 to commemorate Air Canada's 50th Anniversary.

Air Canada maintains the aircraft and uses it to promote the airline. The aircraft was placed on display at Expo 86 after recreating the original TCA cross-country flight in 1937 and continues to be displayed at air shows and conferances. In 2006, it was flown from Toronto to Washington DC for the Airlines International Show [1]. For most of the year, TCC resides at the Western Canada Aviation Museum where it is one of the feature aircraft displayed.

Two Electras are also preserved in New Zealand's Museum of Transport and Technology.

Operators

Commercial

Aeroput (Yugoslavia) (now known as Jat Airways)
British Airways
Canadian Airlines
Chicago & Southern
Continental Airlines
Delta Air Lines
Eastern Airlines
Guinea Airways
Hanford
LARES (Romania)
LAN Chile
LOT Polish Airlines
National Airways
Northwest Airlines
Pan American (Alaska Division)
Trans-Canada Air Lines
Union Airways (New Zealand)

Military

Specifications (Electra 10A)

General characteristics

Crew: 2
Length: 38 ft 7 in (11.8 m)
Wingspan: 55 ft 0 in (16.8 m)
Height: 10 ft 1 in (3.1 m)
Wing area: 458 ft (42.6 m)
Empty weight: 6,454 lb (2,930 kg)
Loaded weight: 10,500 lb (4,760 kg)
Max takeoff weight: lb (kg)
Powerplant: 2× Pratt & Whitney R-985-13 , 450 hp (340 kW) each

Performance

Maximum speed: 202 mph (325 km/h)
Range: 713 mi (1,150 km)
Service ceiling: 19,400 ft (5,910 m)
Rate of climb: 1,000 ft/min (300 m/min)
Wing loading: 22.9 lb/ft² (111.7 kg/m²)
Power/mass: 0.085 hp/lb (142 W/kg)

Lockheed L-9 Orion

2006-12-14T00:41:00.001-08:00

Lockheed L-9 Orion

The Lockheed Orion was the last wooden monoplane design produced by the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation. The Orion design was a combination of elements of many of the Lockheed designs preceding it: the fuselage of the Vega, the cowling of the Air Express, the low wing of the Explorer, and the retractable undercarriage of the Altair. The Orion featured an enclosed cabin with seating for six passengers. The first Orion, tested by Marshall Headle, received its Approved Type Certificate on May 6, 1931.

Lockheed built a total of 35 Orions, of which only one has survived to the present day. Originally built as an Altair, this aircraft was converted to Orion configuration and was flown by James H. Doolittle for the Shell Oil Company as Shellightning. After many years, it ended up in the Swiss Transport Museum in Lucerne, where it is currently on display wearing the colors of Swissair.

Lockheed Altair

2006-12-14T00:40:00.002-08:00

Lockheed Altair

The Lockheed Altair was a development of the Lockheed Sirius. The Altair was one of the first aircraft designs with a fully rectractable undercarriage.

The first five Altairs were converted Siriuses. Another six Altairs were built from scratch: three by Lockheed, two by Detroit Aircraft, and one by AiRover. The AiRover Altair, dubbed The Flying Testbed, was powered by a Unitwin engine, which used two engines to drive a single shaft. The Unitwin was used in the Vega Starliner, which never went into production.

Specifications

General characteristics

Crew: 1
Length: 28 ft 4 in (8.64 m)
Wingspan: 42 ft 9 in (13.03 m)
Height: 9 ft 6 in (2.90 m)
Wing area: 293 ft (27.238 m)
Empty weight: 3,235 lb (1,468 kg)
Loaded weight: 4,895 lb (2,220 kg)
Max takeoff weight: lb (kg)
Powerplant: 1× , ()

Performance

Maximum speed: 207 mph (333 km/h)
Range: 580 mi (935 km)
Service ceiling: 23,800 ft (23,800 m)

Lockheed Sirius

2006-12-14T00:40:00.001-08:00

Lockheed Sirius

The Lockheed 8 Sirius was single engine, propeller driven monoplane designed and built by Jack Northrop and Gerard Vultee while they were engineers at Lockheed in 1929, at the request of Charles Lindbergh. Two versions of the same basic design were built for the United States Air Force, one made largely of wood with a fixed landing gear, and one with a metal skin and retractable landing gear, designated Y1C-25 and Y1C-23, respectively. Its basic role was intended to be utility transport.

History

The first and best known Sirius was bought by Charles Lindbergh, and in 1931 was retrofitted to be a sea plane. He and his wife, Anne, would fly it to the Far East, and she would write a book about their experiences there entitled North to the Orient. The aircraft was damaged in Hankou, China when it accidentally capsized while being lowered off the HMS Hermes, and had to be sent back to Lockheed to be repaired.

In 1933, the Lindberghs set out again with the plane, now upgraded with a more powerful engine, a new directional gyro, and an artificial horizon built into the instrument panel. This time their route would take them across the northern Atlantic, with no particular destination, but primarily to scout for potential new airline routes. While at a refueling stop in Angmagssalik, Greenland, the inuit of the area gave the plane a nickname, "Tingmissartoq" or "one who flies like a bird". They continued on their flight and travelled to many stops in Europe, Russia, then south to Africa, back across the southern Atlantic to Brazil and appeared back over the skies of New York City at the end of 1933, after 30,000 miles and 21 countries, where droves of people turned out to greet them as they landed.

The aircraft was in the American Museum of Natural History in New York City until 1955, when ownership of it was transferred to the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. It was given to the Smithsonian Institution in 1959, and it went on display at the National Air and Space Museum when the original facility opened on the National Mall in 1976.

Specifications

Dimensions:

Wing span: 42 ft 9.25 in
Length: 27 ft 1 in
Wing Span: 42 ft 9.25 in
Weights: 2,978 lb empty, 4,600 lb. loaded.

Performance:

Max Speed: 185 mph
Cruise Speed: 150 mph
Range: 975 miles
Service Ceiling: 20,000 ft

Engine:

One 450 hp Pratt & Whitney R-1340 Wasp.
Later upgraded to a 710 hp Wright SR-1839 Cyclone.

Lockheed Explorer

2006-12-14T00:39:00.001-08:00

Lockheed Explorer

The Lockheed Explorer was the least successful wooden airplane design produced by the Lockheed Aircraft Company. The Vega fuselage was combined with a cantilevered low wing. Seating for a single pilot was provided in an open cockpit behind the wings.

Work on the Explorer was commenced in 1927 for Sir Hubert Wilkins as an aircraft for use in exploration of Antarctica. However, this configuration was judgeed impractical, and Sir Wilkins opted to use a Vega equipped with floats instead. The incomplete aircraft was brought out of storage to make an attempt at a nonstop flight between Japan and the United States, funded by lumber dealer John Buffelen and members of the Tacoma Chamber of Commerce. Named City of Tacoma, the first Pacific crossing attempt ended in disaster when overfilled fuel tanks spilled over on takeoff. Two subsequent attempts in newer Explorers were also met with failure.

Parts of an Explorer and an Orion were combined to make an Orion-Explorer hybrid. It crashed near Point Barrow, Alaska on August 15, 1935, taking the lives of aviator Wiley Post and humorist Will Rogers.

Lockheed built a total of four Explorers, all of which were destroyed in crashes.

Specifications (Explorer 4)

General characteristics

Crew: 1
Length: 27 ft 6 in (8.38 m)
Wingspan: 48 ft 6 in (14.78 m)
Height: 8 ft 2 in (2.49 m)
Wing area: 313 ft (29.077 m)
Empty weight: 3,075 lb (1,395 kg)
Loaded weight: 9,008 lb (4,086 kg)
Max takeoff weight: lb (kg)
Powerplant: 1× Pratt & Whitney Wasp , 450 hp (kW)

Performance

Maximum speed: 165 mph (265 km/h)
Range: 5,500 mi (8,850 km)
Service ceiling: ft (m)
Rate of climb: 1,200 ft/min (366 m/s)
Wing loading: 28.8 lb/ft² (140.5 kg/m²)
Power/mass: hp/lb (kW/kg)

Lockheed Air Express

2006-12-14T00:38:00.000-08:00

Lockheed Air Express

The Lockheed Air Express was the second aircraft design created by the Lockheed Aircraft Company after its founding in 1927; the type first flew in April 1928. The Air Express was based around the original fuselage of the Vega, but the wing was raised to a parasol configuration above the fuselage and the cockpit was moved behind the wing. The design was a commercial success for the company although only seven were built.

No Air Expresses have survived to the present day.

Specifications

Lockheed produced 7 aircraft between 1928 and 1931. This info published in the Lockheed Star Vol. 49, No.13, July 1 1982. This issue contains other info pertinent to Lockheed aircraft.

D.C Phillips

Lockheed Vega

2006-12-14T00:37:00.000-08:00

Lockheed Vega

his article is about the aircraft type. For the subsidiary of Lockheed, see Vega Aircraft Corporation.

This red Lockheed Vega 5b was flown by Amelia Earhart in breaking two world records.

The Vega was a six-passenger monoplane built by the Lockheed company starting in 1927. It became famous for its use by a number of record breaking pilots who were attracted to the rugged and very long-ranged design. Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly the Atlantic single handed in one, and Wiley Post flew his around the world twice.

Designed by John Northrop and Gerrard Vultee, both of whom would later form their own companies, the plane was originally intended to serve with Lockheed's own airline routes. They set out to build a four-seat plane that was not only rugged, but the fastest plane as well. Utilizing the latest designs in monocoque fuselages, cantilever wings and the best engine available, the Vega delivered on the speed promises.

The fuselage was monocoque, but built from sheets of plywood skinned over wooden ribs. The plane was built in two halves in large presses, and then glued together. With the fuselage constructed in this fashion, the wing spar had to be kept clear, so they decided to make a single spar cantilever mounted on the very top of the plane. The only part of the aircraft that wasn't particularly streamlined was the landing gear. For power they chose the Wright Whirlwind, which delivered 225 horsepower (168 kW).

The first Vega 1, named the Golden Eagle, flew from Lockheed's Los Angeles plant on July 4, 1927. It could cruise at a then-fast 120 mph (193 km/h), and had a top speed of 135 mph (217 km/h). However the four-passenger (plus one pilot) load was considered too small for airline use. A number of private owners placed orders for the design however, and by the end of 1928 they had produced 68 of this original design. In the 1928 National Air Races in Cleveland, Vegas won every speed award.

Looking to improve the design, Lockheed delivered the Vega 5 in 1929. Adding the Pratt & Whitney R-1340 Wasp engine of 450 hp (336 kW) improved weights enough to allow two more seats to be added. A new NACA cowling increased cruise speed to 155 mph (249 km/h) and top speed to 165 mph (266 km/h). However, even the new six-seat configuration proved to be too small, and the 5 was purchased primarily for private aviation and executive transport. Sixty-four Vega 5s were built. In 1931 the Air Corps bought two Vega 5s; one designated C-12 and one as C-17.

Surviving Vegas

Both Wiley Post's Winnie Mae and Amelia Earhart's Vegas are on display in the National Air and Space Museum. Four others are believed to exist, at least one of which is still in flying condition.

Specifications (Vega 5)

General characteristics

Crew: 1
Length: 27 ft 6 in (8.38 m)
Wingspan: 41 ft in (12.49 m)
Height: 8 ft 6 in (2.59 m)
Wing area: 259 ft (25.548 m)
Empty weight: 2,565 lb (1,163 kg)
Loaded weight: 4,500 lb (2,041 kg)
Max takeoff weight: lb (kg)
Powerplant: 1× Pratt & Whitney Wasp R1340C , hp (kW)

Performance

Maximum speed: 185 mph (298 km/h)
Cruise speed: 165 mph (265 km/h)
Range: 725 mi (1,165 km)
Service ceiling: 15,000 ft (4,570 m)
Rate of climb: 1,300 ft/min (396 m/s)
Wing loading: lb/ft² (kg/m²)
Power/mass: hp/lb (kW/kg)

Lockheed L-2000

2006-12-14T00:35:00.000-08:00

Lockheed L-2000

The Lockheed L-2000 was Lockheed's entry in a government-funded competition to build the United States' first supersonic transport (SST) in the 1960s. The L-2000 lost the contract to the Boeing 2707, but this design was also ultimately cancelled for environmental and economic reasons.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy committed the government to subsidizing 75% of the development of a commercial airliner to compete with Anglo-French Concorde then under development. The director of the Federal Aviation Administration, Najeeb Halaby, elected to improve upon the Concorde's design rather than compete head-to-head with it. The SST, which represented a significant advance over the Concorde, was intended to carry 250 passengers (a large number at the time), fly at Mach 2.7-3.0, and have a range of 4,000 miles.

The program was launched on June 5, 1963, and the FAA estimated that by 1990 there would be a market for 500 SSTs. Boeing, Lockheed, and North American officially responded. North American's design was soon rejected, but the Boeing and Lockheed designs were selected for further study.

Early design studies

Like Boeing, Lockheed had done a number of "paper studies" on various SST designs since the 1950s. Early designs followed Lockheed's unique high-speed design, which used a short—almost rectangular—wing, as opposed to the swept wings or delta wings favored by most other designers. (Take the wing of the F-104 Starfighter for example.)

Starting with the Blackbird, however, Lockheed began moving toward delta wings. The SST paper studies followed suit, leading to the delta winged L-2000 series. A number of similar designs were studied at a range of sizes and passenger capacities, from the 170-seat 2000-1, to the 250 seat 2000-3 and 2000-7. All of these designs used a 2 by 3 seating arrangement, slimmer than the more common 3 by 3 found on other "narrow body" airliners of the era.

Design competition

During the period between 1963 and 1966, the design took on its final form as the L-2000-7B. It was, for all intents, a larger version of Concorde. The differences tended to be in the details: Lockheed used a simpler compound-delta planform instead of Concorde's more complex ogive, and the Pratt & Whitney JTF17 engines were mounted in individual cylindrical nacelles with a vertical splitter into the shock ramps, instead of the Concorde's box-like nacelles with horizontal intake ramps. The L-2000 also had a prominent "belly" for fuel and cargo, with the main fuselage sitting somewhat higher over the wing than on other designs.

On December 31, 1966, full-scale mockups of the Boeing 2707-200 and L-2000-7 design were presented to the FAA, and the Boeing design was selected. The L-2000 was judged simpler to produce and less risky, but its performance was slightly lower and its noise levels slightly higher. The Boeing design was considered more advanced, representing a greater lead over the Concorde and thus more fitting to the original design mandate. Ironically, Boeing eventually changed its advanced variable-geometry wing design to a more simple delta-wing similar to Lockheed's design. The American SST project was cancelled in 1971.

Specifications (L-2000-7A)

General characteristics

Crew:
Capacity: 273 passengers
Length: 273 ft 2 in (83.26 m)
Wingspan: 116 ft (35.36 m)
Height: ()
Wing area: 8,486 ft² (778.378 m²)
Empty weight: 238,00 lb (107,955 kg)
Max takeoff weight: 590,000 lb (276,620 kg)
Powerplant: 4× GE4/J5M or Pratt & Whitney JTF17A-21L , () each

Performance

Cruise speed: Mach 2.7 ()
Range: 4,000 mi (6,435 km)
Service ceiling: 70,000 ft (21,375 m)

Tupolev Tu-244

2006-12-14T00:34:00.001-08:00

Tupolev Tu-244

The Tupolev Tu-244 is a proposed a supersonic transport (SST) aeroplane developed from the Tu-144 (also known as Concordski) design produced in 1967. Tupolev estimate it will be available between 2010-2015. It implements novel features such as Cryogenic fuel to enable flight distance of upto 10,000 KM, for 300 prestigious passengers.
LINKS:Tupelov Tu-244 design model

Tupolev Tu-144

2006-12-14T00:32:00.000-08:00

Tupolev Tu-144

The Tupolev Tu-144 (NATO reporting name: Charger) was a supersonic transport aircraft (SST) constructed under the direction of the Soviet Tupolev design bureau headed by Alexei Tupolev (1925–2001).

Western media nicknamed the plane Concordski (sometimes Konkordski), sounding like a Russian surname yet still very close to Concorde, to which Tu-144 was visually similar. A prototype first flew on December 31, 1968 near Moscow, two months before Concorde. The Tu-144 first broke the sound barrier on June 5, 1969, and on July 15, 1969 it became the first commercial transport to exceed Mach 2.

Tu-144

Tu-144LL
Type	Supersonic airliner
Manufacturer	Tupolev OKB
Maiden flight	1968-12-31
Introduced	1975-12-26
Retired	1978-06-01
Primary user	Aeroflot
Number built	14

Development

The Russians published the concept of the Tu-144 in the January 1962 issue of Russian „Technology of the Air Transport“-magazine in the article by Seljakov, Oscherov, Istomin and Dobrovsky. Air ministry started the development Tu-144 on 26th July 1963 by the decision document Number 276. The Soviet ministerial council had made the decision 768-271 on the 16th of July 1963. This meant that five flying prototypes were to be built in four years. The first aircraft was to be ready in 1966.

The development of the Tu-144 is claimed to be closely related to industrial espionage against the French company Aérospatiale, which was developing Concorde, although the Tu-144 flew first. When Sergei Pavlov —officially acting as Aeroflot’s representative in Paris—was arrested in 1965, he was in possession of detailed plans of the braking system, the landing gear and the airframe of Concorde. Another agent named Sergei Fabiew, who was arrested in 1977, was believed to have obtained the entire plans of the prototype Concorde back in the mid-60s. However, these were early development plans and would not have permitted the USSR engineers to come up with their own aircraft; the plans could only serve as a general indication of the work of the Concorde design team.

The similarity of the Tu-144 to the Franco-British supersonic aircraft was superficially very great, but the differences in the control, navigation and engine systems were dramatic. Just as the Shuttle Buran program was developed as a response to the Space Shuttle program, but was in the end quite different, the Tu-144 was in some ways a more technologically advanced aircraft. Many substantial upgrades and changes were made on the Tu-144 prototype (serial number 68001).

Another significant difference between Concorde and the Tu-144 is that the Tu-144 wing did not have the complex curves found on that of Concorde, instead using small retractable canard surfaces to manoeuvre at low speeds.

At the Paris Air Show on June 3, 1973 the development programme suffered a severe blow when the first Tu-144S production aircraft (reg 77102) crashed. While in the air it undertook a violent downwards manoeuvre. Trying to pull out of the subsequent dive, the plane broke up and crashed, destroying 15 houses and killing all six on board and eight on the ground.

The causes of this incident remain controversial today. A popular theory was that the Tu-144 was forced to avoid a French Mirage chase plane which was attempting to photograph its canards, which were very advanced for the time, and that the French and Soviet governments colluded to cover up such details. The flight of the Mirage was denied in the original French report of the incident, perhaps because it was engaged in industrial espionage. More recent reports have admitted the existence of the Mirage, though not its role in the crash.

Another theory claims that the black box was actually recovered by the Soviets and decoded. The cause of this accident is now thought to be due to changes made by the ground engineering team to the auto-stabilisation input controls prior to the second day of display flights. These changes were intended to allow the Tu-144 to outperform Concorde in the display circuit. Unfortunately, the changes also inadvertently connected some factory-test wiring which resulted in an excessive rate of climb, leading to the stall and subsequent crash.

A third theory relates to deliberate sabotage on the part of the Anglo/French team. The main thrust of this theory was that the Anglo/French team knew that the Soviet Team were planning to steal the design plans of Concorde, and the Soviets were allegedly passed blueprints with deliberately introduced design flaws. The case contributed to the imprisonment by the Soviets of Greville Wynne in 1963 for spying^{[citation needed]}.

In service

The Tu-144S went into service on December 26, 1975 flying mail and freight between Moscow and Alma-Ata in preparation for passenger services, which commenced in November 1977 and ran a semi-scheduled service until the first Tu-144D experienced an in-flight failure during a pre-delivery test flight, and crash-landed with crew fatalities on May 23, 1978. The Aeroflot flight on June 1, 1978 was the Tu-144's 55th and last scheduled passenger service.

A scheduled Aeroflot freight-only service recommenced using the new production variant Tu-144D aircraft on 23 June 1979, including longer routes from Moscow to Khabarovsk made possible by the more efficient RD-36-51 engines used in the Tu-144D version. Including the 55 passenger flights, there were 102 scheduled Aeroflot flights before the cessation of commercial services.

It is known that Aeroflot still continued to fly the Tu-144D after the official end of service, with some additional non-scheduled flights through the 1980s. One report showed that it was used on a flight from the Crimea to Kiev in 1987^{[citation needed]}.

Production

A total of 16 airworthy Tu-144s were built: the prototype Tu-144 reg 68001, a pre-production Tu-144S reg 77101, nine production Tu-144S reg 77102–110, and five Tu-144D reg 77111–115. A seventeenth Tu-144 (reg 77116) was never completed. There was also at least one ground-test airframe for static testing in parallel with the prototype 68001 development.

The Tu-144S model had NK-144 turbofan engines, whereas the later Tu-144D model featured more powerful RD-36-51 engines with better fuel efficiency (particularly during supercruise, not requiring afterburner), and longer range. It was also one of the last commercial airplanes with a brake-parachute, together with early Tu-134.

Models equipped with the NK-144 turbofan engines could not cruise at Mach 2 without the afterburner on. A max cruising speed of Mach 1.6 was possible on "dry" power (afterburner off).

Post-production uses

Although its last commercial passenger flight was in 1978, production of the Tu-144 did not cease until six years later, in 1984, when construction of the partially complete Tu-144D reg 77116 airframe was stopped. During the 1980s the last two production aircraft to fly were used for airborne laboratory testing, including research into ozone depletion at high altitudes.

In the early 1990s a wealthy businesswoman, Judith DePaul, and her company IBP Aerospace negotiated an agreement with Tupolev and NASA, (also Rockwell and later Boeing). They offered a Tu-144 as a testbed for its High Speed Commercial Research program, intended to design a second-generation supersonic jetliner. In 1995, Tu-144D [reg 77114] built in 1981 (but with only 82 hours and 40 minutes total flight time) was taken out of storage and after extensive modification at a total cost of US$350 million was designated the Tu-144LL (where LL is an abbreviation for Flying Laboratory). It made a total of 27 flights in 1996 and 1997. In 1999, though regarded as a success, the project was cancelled for lack of funding.

The Tu-144LL was reportedly sold in June 2001 for $11 million via online auction, but the plane did not sell after all — Tejavia reported in September 2003 that the deal was not signed. The replacement Kuznetsov NK-321 engines (from the Tupolev Tu-160 bomber) are military items and the Russian government would not allow them to be exported.

At the 2005 - Moscow Air & Space Show TEJAVIA founder Randall Stephens found the Kuznetsov NK-321 engine on display, and the Tu-144LL rusting on Tupolev's test base at the Gromov Flight Test Center. In late 2003, with the retirement of Concorde, there was renewed interest from several well-heeled people who wanted to use the Tu-144LL for a transatlantic record attempt; but Stephens advised them of the high cost of a flight-readiness overhaul even if military authorities would authorize the use of NK-321 engines outside Russian Federation airspace.

The last two production aircraft remain at the Tupolev production plant in Zhukovsky, reg 77114 and 77115. In March 2006 it was announced that these airframes had been sold for scrap (Article from Aviapedia). Later that year, however, it was reported that both aircraft would instead be preserved.[1]

The only Tu-144 on display outside the former Soviet Union was acquired by the Auto & Technikmuseum Sinsheim in Germany, where it was shipped — not flown — in 2001 and where it now stands, in its original Aeroflot livery, on display next to an Air France Concorde.

Civil operators

Aeroflot

Specifications (Tu-144LL with Kuznetsov RD-36-51 engines)

These are the specification for the Tu-144LL with military spec turbofan engines. These engines were non export items..

General characteristics

Crew: 3
Capacity: 120-140 passengers
Length: 65.50 m (215.54 ft)
Wingspan: 28.80 m (94.48 ft)
Height: 10.50 m (34.42 ft)
Wing area: 438.0 m² (4,715 ft²)
Empty weight: 85,000 kg (187,400 lb)
Loaded weight: kg (lb)
Max takeoff weight: 180,000 kg (397,000 lb)
Fuel capacity: 70,000 kg (154,000 lb)

Performance

Maximum speed: Mach 2.35 (2,500 km/h, 1,550 mph)
Cruise speed: Mach 2.16 (2,300 km/h, 1,430 mph)
Range: 6,500 km (3,500 nm, 4,000 mi)
Service ceiling: 18,000 m (59,100 ft)
Rate of climb: m/s (ft/min)
Wing loading: kg/m² (lb/ft²)

Concorde

2006-12-14T00:28:00.000-08:00

Concorde

Concorde" redirects here. For other uses, see Concorde (disambiguation).

Concorde

Air France Concorde
Type	Supersonic airliner
Manufacturer	Aérospatiale-BAC
Maiden flight	2 March 1969
Introduced	21 January 1976
Retired	26 November 2003
Primary users	British Airways Air France
Number built	20^[1]
Unit cost	£23 million (US$46 million) in 1977

The Aérospatiale-BAC Concorde supersonic transport (SST), along with the Tupolev Tu-144, was one of only two models of supersonic passenger airliners ever to have been operated commercially. First flown in 1969, Concorde service commenced in 1976 and continued for 27 years. It regularly flew from London Heathrow (British Airways) and Paris Charles de Gaulle (Air France) to New York JFK. During its service life it set many records, including a record flight time of 2 hours, 52 minutes and 59 seconds between New York and London, on 7 February 1996. Due to its only crash in 2000, and for economic reasons after the 9/11 attacks, operations ceased in 2003.

As a technically sophisticated, extremely fast and iconic aircraft, its costly development phase represented a substantial economic loss for the French and British governments, although it made large operating profits for British Airways for much of its service life. In retirement, Concorde remains an icon of aircraft history.

General features

Concorde had an average cruise speed of Mach 2.02 (an airspeed of around 2,140 km/h or 1,330 mph) with a maximum cruise altitude of 60,000 feet (18,300 metres). It was an ogival delta-winged aircraft with four Olympus engines based on those originally developed for the Avro Vulcan strategic bomber. The engines were jointly built by Rolls-Royce and SNECMA, the latter gaining its first foothold in civil aviation turbojet engine manufacturing. Concorde was the first civil airliner to be equipped with an analogue fly-by-wire flight control system. It employed a trademark droop snoot lowering nose section for visibility on approach and sported taxi and landing lights that retracted flush to its body to reduce drag. Commercial flights operated by British Airways and Air France began on 21 January 1976 and ended on 24 October 2003, with the last "retirement" flight on 26 November that year.

In regular service, Concorde employed a relatively efficient cruise-climb. As aircraft lose weight from consuming fuel, they can fly at progressively higher altitudes. This is (generally) more efficient, so conventional airliners employ a stepped climb, where air traffic control will approve a change to a higher flight level as the flight progresses. With no other civil traffic operating at her cruise altitude, dedicated Oceanic airways across the Atlantic were allocated in which Concorde would be cleared in a 10,000' block, allowing her to slowly climb from 50,000 to 60,000 feet during her crossing.

Design and development

Concorde's final flight, G-BOAF from Heathrow to Bristol, on 26 November 2003.

In the late 1950s, the United Kingdom, France, United States and Soviet Union were considering developing supersonic transport.

Concorde G-BOAD on a barge beneath Verrazano Narrows Bridge in New York City in November 2003, bound for the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum.

Britain's Bristol Aeroplane Company and France's Sud Aviation were both working on designs, called the Type 233 and Super-Caravelle, respectively. Both were largely funded by their respective governments.^[2] The British design was for a trans-Atlantic-ranged aircraft for around 100 people, while the French were intending to concentrate on a medium-range sector.

The designs were both ready to start prototype construction in the early 1960s, but the cost was so great that the British government made it a requirement that BAC look for international co-operation. Approaches were made to a number of countries, but only France showed real interest. The development project was negotiated as an international treaty between the two countries rather than a commercial agreement between companies and included a clause, originally asked for by Britain, issuing penalties for cancellation (Britain's Treasury would later twice come close to cancelling the project). A draft treaty was signed on 28 November 1962. By this time, both companies had been merged into new ones, thus the Concorde project was now a part of the British Aircraft Corporation and Aerospatiale.

The consortium secured orders for over 100 new airliners from the premier airlines of the day. Pan Am, BOAC and Air France were the launch customers with six Concordes each. Other airlines in the order book included: Panair do Brasil, Japan Airlines, Lufthansa, American Airlines, United Airlines, Air Canada, Braniff, Iran Air, Qantas, CAAC, Middle East Airlines and TWA.

The aircraft was initially referred to in Britain as "Concorde," with the French spelling, but was officially changed to "Concord" by Harold Macmillan in response to a perceived slight by Charles de Gaulle. In 1967, at the French roll-out in Toulouse the British Government Minister for Technology, Tony Benn announced that he would change the spelling back to "Concorde."^[3] This created a nationalist uproar that died down when Benn stated that the suffixed "e" represented "Excellence, England, Europe and Entente (Cordiale)." In his memoirs, he recounts a tale of a letter from an irate Scotsman claiming: "you talk about 'E' for England, but part of it is made in Scotland." Given Scotland's contribution of providing the nose cone for the aircraft, Benn replied "it was also 'E' for 'Ecosse'"(the French name for Scotland) "—and I might have added 'e' for extravagance and 'e' for escalation as well!"^[4]

Construction of two prototypes began in February 1965: Concorde 001, built by Aerospatiale at Toulouse, and Concorde 002, by BAC at Filton, Bristol. Concorde 001 made her first test flight from Toulouse on 2 March 1969 and first went supersonic on 1 October. As the flight programme progressed, 001 embarked on a sales and demonstration tour on 4 September 1971. Concorde 002 followed suit on 2 June 1972 with a tour of the Middle and Far East. Concorde 002 made the first visit to the United States in 1973, landing at the new Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport to commemorate the airport's opening.

These trips led to orders for over 70 aircraft. However, a combination of factors led to a sudden number of order cancellations. The 1970s oil crisis (Concorde used more fuel per passenger mile than her subsonic competitors), acute financial difficulties of the partner airlines, a spectacular crash of the competing Soviet Tupolev Tu-144, along with environmental concerns such as the sonic boom, take-off noise and pollution. Eventually, only Air France and British Airways, (the successor to BOAC) took up their orders, with the two governments continuing to take a cut of any profits made. In the case of BA, 80% of the profit was kept by the government until 1984, while the cost of buying the aircraft was covered by a state loan.^[5]

Pre-production Concorde number 101 on display at the Imperial War Museum, Duxford, UK

The United States had cancelled its supersonic transport (SST) program in 1971. Two designs had been submitted; the Lockheed L-2000, looking like a scaled-up Concorde, lost out to the Boeing 2707, which had originally been intended to be faster, carry 300 passengers and feature a swing-wing design. Industry observers in France and the United Kingdom^{[citation needed]} suggested that part of the American opposition to Concorde on grounds of noise pollution was, in fact, orchestrated by, or at least encouraged by, the United States Government, out of spite at not being able to propose a viable competitor, despite President John F. Kennedy's impassioned 1963 statement of commitment.^[6] Other countries, such as Malaysia, also ruled out Concorde supersonic overflights due to noise concerns.[15]

Both European airlines flew demonstration and test flights from 1974 onwards. The testing of Concorde set records that still have not been surpassed; it undertook 5,335 flight hours in the prototype, pre-production and first production aircraft alone. A total of 2,000 test hours were at supersonic speeds. This statistic equates to approximately four times as many as similarly sized subsonic commercial aircraft. Unit costs were £23 million (US$46 million) in 1977. Development cost overrun was 600%.^[7]

Technological features

An unusual camera angle on the final Concorde landing

The flight deck.

Many features common in early 21st century airliners were first used in Concorde.

For high speed and optimization of flight:

Double-delta (ogee/ogival) shaped wings
Rolls-Royce/Snecma Olympus turbojet engines with reheat (afterburners) and variable inlet ramps
Supercruise capability
Thrust-by-wire engines, predecessor of today's FADEC-controlled engines
Droop-nose section for improved visibility in landing

For weight-saving and enhanced performance:

Mach 2.04 for optimum fuel consumption (supersonic drag minimum, although turbojet engines are more efficient at high speed)
Mainly aluminium construction for low weight and relatively conventional manufacture (higher speeds would have ruled out aluminium)
Full-regime autopilot and autothrottle allowing "hands off" control of the aircraft from climb out to landing
Fully electrically controlled analogue fly-by-wire flight controls systems
Multifunction flight control surfaces
High-pressure hydraulic system of 28 MPa (4,000 lbf/in²) for lighter hydraulic systems components
Fully electrically controlled analogue brake-by-wire system
Pitch trim by shifting fuel around the fuselage for centre-of-gravity control
Parts milled from single alloy billet reducing the part-number count

Concorde's primary legacy is in the experience gained in her design and manufacture which later became the basis of the Airbus consortium. For example, Snecma Moteurs' involvement with the Concorde programme prepared the company's entrance into civil engine design and manufacturing, opening the way for Snecma to establish CFM International with General Electric and produce the successful CFM International CFM56 series engines.

Although Concorde was a technological marvel when introduced into service in the 1970s, 30 years later, her cockpit, cluttered with analogue dials and switches looked dated. With no competition, there was no commercial pressure to upgrade Concorde with enhanced avionics or passenger comforts, as occurred in other airliners of the same vintage (e.g. Boeing 747).

The key partners, BAC (later to become BAE Systems) and Aerospatiale (later to become EADS), were the joint owners of Concorde's type certificate. Responsibility for the Type Certificate transferred to Airbus with formation of Airbus SAS.

Main problems overcome during design

G-AXDN, Duxford, close up of engines.

Many issues were overcome whilst researching and developing Concorde.^[8].

Movement of centre of pressure

When any aircraft passes the critical mach of that particular airframe, the centre of pressure shifts rearwards. This causes a pitch down force on the aircraft as the centre of gravity remains where it was. The engineers designed the wings in a specific manner to reduce this shift. However, there was still a shift of about 2 m. This could have been countered by the use of trim controls, but at such high speeds this would have caused a dramatic increase in the drag on the aircraft. Instead, the distribution of fuel along the aircraft was shifted during acceleration and deceleration to move the centre of gravity, effectively acting as an auxiliary trim control.

Engines

To be economically viable, Concorde needed to be able to fly reasonably long distances, and this required high efficiency. For optimum supersonic flight, the engines needed to have a small frontal cross-sectional area to minimise drag and a low bypass ratio to give a high, supersonic exhaust speed. Turbojets were thus the best choice of engines. The more efficient and quieter high bypass turbofan engines such as used on Boeing 747s could not be used. The engine chosen was the twin spool Rolls-Royce/Snecma Olympus 593, a version of the Olympus originally developed for the Vulcan bomber, but further developed for Concorde.

Concorde's ramp system

The inlet design for Concorde's engines was especially critical. All conventional jet engines can only intake air at around Mach 0.5; the air, therefore, needs to be slowed from the Mach 2.0 airspeed that enters the engine inlet. In particular, Concorde needed to control the shockwaves this reduction in speed generates to avoid damage to the engines. This was done by a pair of ramps and an auxiliary flap, whose position was moved during flight to slow the air down. The ramps were at the top of the engine compartment and moved down and the auxiliary flap moved both up and down allowing air to flow in or out. During take-off, when the engine's air demand was high, the ramps were flat at the top and the auxiliary flap was in, allowing more air to enter the engine. As the aircraft approached Mach 0.7, the flap closed; at Mach 1.3, the ramps came into effect, removing air from the engines which was then used in the pressurization of the cabin. At Mach 2.0, the ramps had covered half their total possible distance. They also helped reduce the work done by the compressors as they not only compressed the air but also increased the air temperature.

Concorde engine twin intake displayed in a museum from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. (Museo del Concorde)

Engine failure causes large problems on conventional subsonic aircraft; not only does the aircraft lose thrust on that side but the engine is a large source of drag, causing the aircraft to yaw and bank in the direction of the engine which has failed. If this could have happened to Concorde at supersonic speeds, it would almost certainly have caused a catastrophic failure of the airframe. However, during an engine failure, an engine's air intake needs are virtually zero, so in Concorde the immediate effects of the engine failure were countered by the opening of the auxiliary flap and the full extension of the ramps, which deflected the air downwards past the engine, gaining lift and streamlining the engine, thus minimising the drag effects of the failed engine. In tests, Concorde was able to shut down both engines on the same side of the aircraft at Mach 2 without any control problems.^[9]

The aircraft used reheat (afterburners) at take-off and to pass through the high-drag transonic regime (i.e. "go supersonic"). Although the engines were just barely capable of reaching Mach 2 without reheat, it was discovered operationally that it burnt more fuel that way, since the aircraft took much longer to accelerate even though reheat is quite inefficient.

Heating issues

Beside engines, the hottest part of the structure of any supersonic aircraft is the nose, and Concorde was no exception. The engineers wanted to use (duralumin) aluminium throughout the aircraft, due to its familiarity, cost and ease of construction. The highest temperature that aluminium could sustain over the life of the aircraft was a maximum of 127 °C, which limited the top speed to Mach 2.02.

Concorde actually went through two cycles of heating and cooling during a flight, first cooling down as it gained altitude, then heating up after going supersonic. The reverse happened when descending and slowing down. This had to be factored into the metallurgical modelling. Owing to the heat generated by compression of the air as Concorde traveled supersonically, the fuselage would extend by as much as thirty centimetres (almost 1 foot), the most obvious manifestation of this being a gap that would open up on the flight deck between the flight engineer's console and the bulkhead.

A way was needed to keep the cabin cool. Concorde used the fuel as a place to dump the heat from the air conditioning, as well as to cool the hydraulics.

In spite of this, during supersonic flight, the windows in the cockpit became too hot to touch.

Structural issues

Due to the high speeds at which Concorde travelled, large forces were applied to the entire aircraft structure during banks and turns. This caused twisting and the distortion of the aircraft's structure. This was resolved by the neutralization of the outwards elevons at high speeds. Only the innermost elevons which are attached to the strongest area of the wings, are active.

Concorde ended up with quite small passenger windows. Research showed that at the extremely high altitude that Concorde flew, a larger window, if broken, could have led to the passengers and crew passing out before the aircraft could be brought down to a safe altitude. Standard oxygen masks would not have helped. The windows were therefore made smaller so that the compressors could maintain sufficient cabin pressure during the descent.

Brakes

Due to a relatively high average take-off speed (250 miles per hour), Concorde needed good brakes. Concorde's brakes were one of the first major uses of anti-lock braking systems which stop the wheels from locking when fully applied, allowing greater deceleration and control during braking, particularly in the wet.

The brakes were carbon-based and could bring Concorde (going at 190 mph, weighing up to 185 tons / 188 tonnes) to a stop from an aborted take-off within one mile (1600 m). This braking manoeuver brought the brakes to temperatures between 300 °C to 500 °C, requiring several hours for cooling.

Increased radiation exposure

The high altitude at which Concorde cruised meant passengers received almost twice the flux of extra-terrestrial ionising radiation as those travelling on a conventional long-haul flight. Because of the proportionally reduced flight time, however, the overall equivalent dose was less than a conventional flight over the same distance^[10]. Unusual solar activity would lead to an increase in incident radiation, therefore the flight deck was fitted with a radiometer and an instrument to measure the rate of decrease of radiation. If the level was too high, Concorde would descend to below 47,000 feet (14 000 m). The rate of decrease indicator indicated whether the aircraft needed to descend further, decreasing the amount of time the aircraft was at an unsafe altitude.

Droop nose

Concorde's famous drooping nose was a compromise between the need for a streamlined design to reduce drag and increase aerodynamic efficiency in flight and the need for the pilot to see properly during taxi, take-off, and landing operations. A delta wing aircraft takes off and lands with a high angle of attack (that is, a high nose angle) compared to subsonic aircraft due to the way the delta wing generates lift. The pointed nose would obstruct the pilots' view of taxiways and runways, so Concorde's nose was designed to allow for different positioning as appropriate for different operations. The droop nose was accompanied by a moving visor that would be retracted into the nose prior to the nose being lowered. When the nose was raised back to horizontal, the visor would be raised ahead of the front cockpit windscreen for further aerodynamic streamlining in flight.[16]

Concorde's nose is famous as the "droop nose," but in flight the nose was not kept in this position. A controller in the cockpit allowed the visor to be retracted and the nose to be lowered to five degrees below the standard horizontal position for use in taxi and take-off operations. Following take-off and after clearing the airport, the nose and visor would be raised. Shortly before landing, the visor would again be retracted and the nose would be lowered to 12.5 degrees below horizontal for maximum visibility. Upon landing, the nose was quickly raised to the five-degree position to avoid the possibility of damage.[17] On very rare occasions, the aircraft could take off with the nose fully down as well.[18]

A final possible position had the visor retracted into the nose but the nose in the standard horizontal position. This setup was used for cleaning the windscreen and for short subsonic flights.[19]

The prototype Concordes, 001 and 002, had two fixed "glass holes" on their retractable visors.[20] The Federal Aviation Administration objected to that restrictive visibility and demanded a different design before it would permit Concorde to serve US airports, which led to the redesigned visor used on the production aircraft as well as on the four "pre-production" aircraft (101, 102, 201, and 202).^{[citation needed]}

Scheduled flights

Concorde G-BOAF. The final ever flight of Concorde landing at Filton Airfield, near Bristol, on 26 November 2003

Scheduled flights began on 21 January 1976 on the London-Bahrain and Paris-Rio routes. The U.S. Congress had just banned Concorde landings in the US, mainly due to citizen protest over sonic booms, preventing launch on the coveted transatlantic routes.

When the US ban for over-water supersonic flight was lifted in February 1977, New York banned Concorde locally. Left with little choice on the destination, AF and BA started transatlantic services to Washington, D.C. on 24 May. The ban came to an end on 17 October 1977 when the Supreme Court of the United States declined to overturn a lower court's ruling rejecting the Port Authority's efforts to continue the ban.[21] Scheduled service from Paris and London to New York's John F. Kennedy Airport began on 22 November 1977. Flights operated by BA were generally coded "BA001" through "BA004." (It was noted in the noise report that Air Force One, at the time, a Boeing 707, was, in fact, louder than Concorde at subsonic speeds and for take-off and landing.)

While commercial jets take seven hours to fly from New York to Paris, the average flight time on the transatlantic routes was just under 3.5 hours. Up to 2003, Air France and British Airways continued to operate the New York services daily. Additionally, Concorde flew to Barbados's Grantley Adams International Airport during the winter holiday season and, occasionally, to charter destinations such as Rovaniemi, Finland. On 1 November 1986, a chartered Concorde circumnavigated the world in 31 hours and 51 minutes.

For a brief period in 1977, and again from 1979 to 1981, British Airways and Singapore Airlines shared a Concorde for flights between Bahrain and Singapore Paya Lebar Airport. The aircraft, G-BOAD, was painted in Singapore Airways livery on the port side and British Airways livery on the starboard.[22] The service was discontinued after three months because of noise complaints from the Malaysian government; it could only be reinstated when a new route bypassing Malaysian airspace was implemented. However, an ongoing dispute with India prevented Concorde from reaching supersonic speeds in Indian airspace, so the route was eventually declared not viable. From September 1978 to November 1982, during the Mexican oil boom, Air France flew Concorde twice weekly to Mexico City's Benito Juárez International Airport via Washington, D.C. The worldwide economic crisis during that period, resulted in the cancellation of the route to Mexico City; the last flights were almost empty. From time to time, Concorde came back to the region on chartered flights with stops in Mexico City and Acapulco.

Between 1984 and 1991, British Airways flew a thrice-weekly Concorde service to London from Miami. This was accomplished subsonically by extending the Dulles flight to Miami and returning the same way.

From 1978 to 1980, Braniff International Airways leased 10 Concordes,^[11] five each from British Airways and Air France. These were used on subsonic flights from Dallas-Fort Worth to IAD, feeding the routes of BA and AF to London and Paris. The aircraft were registered in both the United States and their home countries for legal reasons: a sticker would cover up each aircraft's European registration while it was being operated by Braniff. On DFW-IAD flights, Concorde had Braniff flight crews although they maintained their native airline livery. However, the flights were not profitable for Braniff and were usually less than 50% booked, which forced Braniff to end its tenure as the only U.S. Concorde operator in May 1980.

Passenger experience

Concorde interior.

Passenger experience on Concorde differed in many ways from that on subsonic commercial airliners. British Airways and Air France configured the passenger cabin as a single class with around 100 seats — four seats across with a central aisle. Headroom in the central aisle was barely six feet (1.8 m) and the leather seats were unusually narrow with legroom comparable to economy class on large airliners. With almost no room for overhead storage, even carry-on luggage was severely restricted.

In the 1990s, features which were common in the first class and business class cabins of a long haul Boeing 747 flight such as video entertainment, rotating or reclining seats and perambulatory areas were absent from Concorde. However, the flight time from London to New York of approximately 3.5 hrs compensated for the lack of those features. There was usually a plasma display at the front of the cabin showing either the altitude, the air temperature or current speed in Mach number.

To make up for these missing "comfort" features, a high level of passenger service was maintained. Meals were served using specially designed compact Wedgwood crockery with short silver cutlery.

The experience of passing through the sound barrier was less dramatic than might be expected. The moment, accompanied by a slight surge in acceleration, would be announced by one of the pilots.

At twice the conventional airliner's cruising altitude, the view from the windows clearly showed the curvature of the Earth and turbulence was rare. During the supersonic cruise, although the outside air temperature was typically -60 °C, air friction would heat the external skin at the front of the aircraft to approximately +120 °C, making the windows warm to the touch and producing a noticeable temperature gradient along the length of the cabin, resulting in Concorde expanding in length by up to thirty centimetres (twelve inches), during flight.

Concorde was able to overtake or outrun the sun on routes where subsonic airliners fell behind. On westbound flights it was possible to arrive at a local time earlier than the local departure time. On certain early evening transatlantic flights departing from Heathrow or Paris, it was possible to take off at night and catch up with the sun, landing in daylight; from the cockpit the sun could be seen rising from the horizon in the west. This was much publicised by British Airways, who used the slogan, "Arrive before you leave."

Paris crash

Main article: Air France Flight 4590

On 25 July 2000, Air France Flight 4590, registration code: F-BTSC, crashed in Gonesse, France, killing all 100 passengers and nine crew on board the flight, as well as four people on the ground.

The crash was caused by a titanium strip (part of a thrust reverser) that fell from a Continental Airlines DC-10 that had taken off about four minutes earlier. This metal fragment punctured Concorde's tyres, which then disintegrated. A piece of rubber hit the fuel tank and broke an electrical cable. The impact caused a shockwave that fractured the fuel tank some distance from the point of impact. This caused a major fuel leak from the tank which then ignited. The crew shut down engine number 2 in response to a fire warning but were unable to retract the landing gear, hampering the aircraft's climb. With engine number 1 surging and producing little power, the aircraft was unable to gain height or speed, entering a rapid pitch-up then a violent descent, rolling left. The impact occurred with the stricken aircraft tail low and crashing into the Hotelissimo Hotel in Gonesse. ^[12]

Concorde had, until the accident, been the safest working passenger airliner in the world in terms of passenger deaths per kilometre travelled, but statistically, after the accident it was the worst. While an aircraft's safety cannot be accurately measured from a single accident, the crash of the Air France Concorde nonetheless proved to be the beginning of the end for the type.

The accident subsequently led to a programme of modifications to Concorde, including more secure electrical controls, Kevlar lining to the fuel tanks and specially-developed, burst-resistant tyres.

Return to service

The first test-flight after the modifications departed from London Heathrow on 17 July 2001, piloted by BA Chief Concorde Pilot Mike Bannister. During the three hour and twenty minute flight over the mid-Atlantic towards Iceland, Bannister attained Mach 2 and 60,000 ft before returning to RAF Brize Norton. The test flight, intended to resemble the London-New York route, was declared a success and was watched on live TV, as well as by crowds on the ground at both locations.^[13]

Chief Pilot Mike Bannister (left) and other pilots on flight deck of BA002 30 August 2002

The first BA passenger flight took place on 11 September 2001, and was in the air during the attacks on the World Trade Center. This was not a revenue flight, as all the passengers were BA employees.^[14]

Normal commercial operations resumed on 7 November 2001 by BA and AF (aircraft G-BOAE and F-BTSD), with service to New York JFK where passengers were welcomed by the mayor, Rudy Giuliani.

Withdrawal from service

On 10 April 2003, British Airways and Air France simultaneously announced that they would retire Concorde later that year. They cited low passenger numbers following the 25 July 2000 crash, the slump in air travel following 9/11 and rising maintenance costs.

That same day, Sir Richard Branson offered to buy British Airways' Concordes at their "original price of £1" for service with his Virgin Atlantic Airways. Branson claimed this to be the same token price that British Airways had paid the British Government, but BA denied this^[15] and refused the offer. However, although the cost of buying the aircraft was £26 million each, the money for buying the aircraft was loaned by the government - this loan was written off when British Airways was privatised in 1987.

After posting large losses on their Concorde flights in the early 1980s, British Airways paid a flat sum of £16.5 million in 1984 to the UK government to buy their Concordes outright. After doing a market survey, and discovering that their target customers thought that Concorde was more expensive than it actually was, BA progressively raised prices to match these perceptions. It is reported that BA then ran Concorde at a profit, unlike their French counterparts.^[15] Although BA refused to open the accounts, it has been reported to be up to £50 million per year in the most profitable year and a total revenue of £1.75 billion on costs of £1 billion.^[15]

Branson later wrote to The Economist (23 October 2003) that his final offer was "over £5 million" and that he had intended to operate the fleet "for many years to come." Any hope of Concorde remaining in service was further thwarted by Airbus' unwillingness to provide maintenance support for the ageing airframes.

It has been suggested that Concorde was not cancelled for the reasons usually given, and that the airlines discovered during the grounding that Concorde's first class passengers were loyal to the airlines and carrying them on subsonic aircraft gave greater revenue and that this was the real reason for the withdrawal from service.^[16]

The small hope remaining for Concorde today rests with a dedicated group of French volunteer engineers keeping one of the youngest Concordes in near airworthy condition. This group of engineers, working on the Air France aircraft retired to the Le Bourget Air and Space Museum in Paris, hope that one day Concorde will be able to show her majesty by taking to the skies. Concordes based in Britain, however, have had their fluids drained and systems have been disconnected, making it even harder for her to regain airworthiness certification. It appears that the French hopes present a much better chance of seeing her fly in the future.

Air France

Air France made its final commercial Concorde landing in the United States in New York City from Paris on 30 May 2003. Firetrucks sprayed the traditional arcs of water above the aircraft on the tarmac of John F. Kennedy airport. Concorde F-BTSD operated the airline's final scheduled supersonic service, returning to Paris on a misty May morning. The final passenger flight for the airline's SSTs was marked by a charter around the Bay of Biscay. During the following week, on 2 June and 3 June 2003, F-BTSD flew a final round-trip from Paris to New York and back for airline staff and long-time employees in the airline's Concorde operations.[23] Air France's final Concorde flight took place on 27 June 2003 when F-BVFC retired to Toulouse.[24]

An auction of Concorde parts and memorabilia for Air France was held at Christie's in Paris, on 15 November 2003. Thirteen hundred people attended with several lots exceeding their predicted values by an order of magnitude.

Two French Concordes at Le Bourget and Toulouse have been run occasionally, and it is possible that they could be prepared for future flights for special occasions.^[17]

British Airways

Parade flight at Queen's Golden Jubilee

BA's last Concorde departure from the Grantley Adams International Airport in Barbados was on 30 August 2003. BA conducted a mini North American farewell tour in October 2003. G-BOAG visited Toronto Pearson International Airport on 1 October 2003, G-BOAD visited Boston's Logan International Airport on 8 October 2003, and G-BOAG visited Washington Dulles International Airport on 14 October 2003.[25] G-BOAD's flight to Boston set a record for the fastest transatlantic flight from east to west, making the trip from London Heathrow in three hours, five minutes, thirty-four seconds.[26]

In a final week of farewell flights around the United Kingdom, a Concorde visited Birmingham on 20 October, Belfast on 21 October, Manchester on 22 October, Cardiff on 23 October, and Edinburgh on 24 October. Each day the aircraft made a return flight out and back into Heathrow to the cities concerned, often overflying those cities at low altitude. Over 650 competition winners and 350 special guests were carried.

On 22 October, Heathrow ATC contrived for the inbound flight BA9021C, a special from Edinburgh and BA002 from New York to land simultaneously on the left and right runways respectively.

On the evening of 23 October 2003, the Queen consented to the illumination of Windsor Castle, as Concorde's last ever west-bound commercial flight departed London, and flew overhead. This is an honour normally reserved for major state events and visiting dignitaries.

British Airways retired its aircraft the next day, 24 October. G-BOAG left New York to a fanfare similar to her Air France predecessor's, while two more made round-trips, G-BOAF over the Bay of Biscay, carrying VIP guests including many former Concorde pilots, and G-BOAE to Edinburgh. The three aircraft then circled over London, having received special permission to fly at low altitude, before landing in sequence at Heathrow. The two round-trip Concordes landed at 4:01 and 4:03 p.m. BST, followed at 4:05 by the one from New York. All three aircraft then spent 45 minutes taxiing around the airport before finally disembarking the last supersonic fare-paying passengers. The pilot of the New York to London flight was Mike Bannister. All of BA's Concordes have been grounded, have lost their airworthiness certificates and have been drained of hydraulic fluid. Ex-chief Concorde pilot and manager of the fleet Jock Lowe, estimated it would cost £10-15 million to make G-BOAF (at Filton) airworthy again.^[18] BA maintains ownership of the Concordes, and has stated that their Concordes will not be flown again.

On 1 December 2003, Bonhams held an auction of British Airways' Concorde artifacts at Kensington Olympia, in London. Items sold included: a Machmeter, nose cone, Concorde pilot and passenger seats and even cutlery, ashtrays and blankets used onboard. Proceeds of about £¾ million resulted,with the first half-million going to Get Kids Going!, a charity which gives disabled children and young people the opportunity to participate in sport.

Aircraft histories

20 Concordes were built, six for development and 14 for commercial service.

Concorde G-BOAG at Museum of Flight, Seattle, Washington, USA

These were:

Two prototypes
Two pre-production aircraft
16 production aircraft
- The first two of these did not enter commercial service
- Of the 14 which flew commercially, 12 were still in service in April 2003

All but two of these aircraft - a remarkably high percentage for any commercial fleet, are preserved; the two which are not preserved are F-BVFD (cn 211), withdrawn from service in the 1980s and scrapped in 1994, and F-BTSC (cn 203), which crashed in Paris.

Concorde Aircraft
Number	Reg	First Flew	Last Flew	Hours	Location
001	F-WTSS	2 March 1969	19 October 1973	812	The Museum of Air and Space, Le Bourget, France
002	G-BSST	9 April 1969	4 March 1976	836	Fleet Air Arm Museum, Yeovilton, UK
101	G-AXDN	17 December 1971	20 August 1977	632	Imperial War Museum, Duxford, UK
102	F-WTSA	10 January 1973	20 May 1976	656	Musee Delta, Orly Airport, Paris, France
201	F-WTSB	6 December 1973	19 April 1985	909	Airbus Factory, Toulouse, France
202	G-BBDG	13 December 1974	24 December 1981	1282	Brooklands Museum, Weybridge, Surrey, UK
203	F-BTSC	31 January 1975	25 July 2000	11989	Destroyed in air crash outside Paris, France
204	G-BOAC	27 February 1975	31 October 2003	22260	Manchester Airport Viewing Park, UK
205	F-BVFA	27 October 1976	12 June 2003	17824	Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Chantilly, Virginia USA
206	G-BOAA	5 November 1975	12 August 2000	22768	Museum of Flight, East Lothian, Scotland
207	F-BVFB	6 March 1976	24 June 2003	14771	Sinsheim Auto & Technik Museum, Germany
208	G-BOAB	18 May 1976	15 August 2000	22296	Heathrow Airport, London, UK
209	F-BVFC	9 July 1976	27 June 2003	14332	Airbus Factory, Toulouse, France
210	G-BOAD	25 August 1976	10 November 2003	23397	Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum, New York, USA; temporary move to Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn pending for duration of restoration and rehabilitation work on Intrepid, as of late 2006
211	F-BVFD	10 February 1977	27 May 1982	5814	Broken up
212	G-BOAE	17 March 1977	17 November 2003	23376	Grantley Adams International Airport, Barbados
213	F-BTSD	26 June 1978	14 June 2003	12974	The Museum of Air and Space, Le Bourget, France
214	G-BOAG	21 April 1978	5 November 2003	16239	Museum of Flight, Seattle, USA
215	F-BVFF	26 December 1978	11 June 2000	12421	Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris, France
216	G-BOAF	20 April 1979	26 November 2003	18257	Filton Aerodrome, Bristol, UK

Further information: Concorde aircraft histories

Cultural and political impact

Concorde remains a powerful symbol, both for her technology and her sculptural shape. It is a symbol of great national pride to many in Britain and France; in France it was thought of as a French aircraft^{[citation needed]}, in Britain as British.^[19]

Environmental impacts

The reaction of people to the prospect of severe overflying noise also represented a socially important change. Prior to Concorde's flight trials the developments made by the civil aviation industry were largely accepted by developed democratic governments and their electors. The popular backlash (particularly on the eastern seaboard of the USA) against the noise of Concorde represented a political turning point and thereafter scientists and technologists in many industries began to take environmental and societal impacts more seriously, accepting that engineers, powerful investors and governments could not always allow their economic or career interests to prevail^{[citation needed]}.

One of the key protesters to the "SST" (Super Sonic Transport - the US term given to the Concorde aircraft), Carol Vendi, ultimately gained political ground over the whole issue and was elected to the US Congress. Concorde led directly to a general noise reduction in aircraft flying out of JFK; it was found that Concorde was actually quieter than some aircraft ^[20](partly due to the pilots temporarily throttling back their engines to reduce noise during overflight of residential areas). This caused the other airlines to have to follow suit.

Concorde produced nitrogen oxides in its exhaust, damaging to the ozone layer at the airliner's stratospheric cruising altitudes. However, the effects are more complex, since nitrogen oxides react with ozone, destroying chlorine and removing it. Chlorine is the main ozone destroying pollutant. It has been pointed out that other, lower-flying, airliners actually produce ozone during their flights in the troposphere, but vertical transit of gases between the two is highly restricted.^[21] There have been accusations that the anti-SST lobby overstated the case for ozone degradation to suit their political ends.

From this perspective, Concorde's technical leap forward can be viewed as boosting the public's (and the media's) understanding of conflicts between technology and the environment. In France, the use of acoustic fencing alongside TGV tracks might not have been achieved without the 1970s furore over aircraft noise. In Britain, the CPRE have issued tranquillity maps since 1990 and public agencies are starting to do likewise.

Public perception

Concorde was normally perceived as a privilege of the rich, but special circular (non-landing) or one-way (with return by coach or ship) charter flights were arranged to bring a trip within the means of moderately well-off enthusiasts.

Her enigma was such that an overflight would frequently temporarily halt day-to-day business, and she was usually referred to by the British as simply "Concorde"^[22]^[23] and the French as "le Concorde" (rather than "un Concorde"), as if there were only one. (In fact, this article follows the British usage.)

As a symbol of national pride, a plane from the BA fleet made occasional flypasts at selected Royal events, major airshows and other special occasions, sometimes in formation with the Red Arrows. On the final day of commercial service, public interest was so great that grandstands were erected at London's Heathrow Airport to afford a view of the final arrivals. Crowds filled the boundary road around the airport and there was extensive media coverage.

Thirty-seven years after her first test flight, Concorde was announced the winner of the Great British Design Quest, organised by the BBC and the Design Museum.^[24] A total of 212,000 votes were cast with Concorde beating design icons such as the Mini, mini skirt, Jaguar E-type, Tube map and the Supermarine Spitfire.^[25]

Artistic

Public reaction to the Air France Concorde crash was cited by Jeremy Clarkson during a 2004 TV appearance on Parkinson as a primary inspiration for his book I Know You Got Soul.

Trivia

In transatlantic flight, Concorde travelled more than twice as fast as other aircraft, and other aircraft frequently appeared to be flying backwards.
Concorde had restrictions on its livery; the majority of the surface had to be white to avoid overheating the aluminium structure due to the supersonic heating effects of Mach 2.^[26] In 1996, however, Air France briefly painted F-BTSD in a predominantly blue livery (with the exception of its wings) as part of a promotional deal with Pepsi Cola. In this paint scheme, Air France were advised to remain at Mach 2 for no more than twenty minutes at a time, but there was no restriction at speeds under Mach 1.7. F-BTSD was chosen for the promotion because she was not then scheduled to operate any long flights that would require extended Mach 2 operations.^[27]
On all the Concordes that had a supersonic flight before retirement, the flight engineers placed their hats in the gap that appears at high speed between the console and the bulkhead before it cooled, where the hats remain to this day. However, in the case of the Seattle museum's Concorde, a protruding cap was cut off by a thief in an apparent attempt to steal it, leaving a part behind. An amnesty led to the severed cap being returned; the museum has been examining options to reattach it in some way.
Due to turbojet engines being highly inefficient at low speeds, Concorde burned two tonnes of fuel taxiing to the runway.^[28] After landing, only the two outer engines were run to conserve fuel because the full 152,200 lb of thrust (677 kN) was not required. A Concorde once ran out of fuel taxiing back to the terminal after a flight; the pilot was sacked. ^[29]
The delta-shaped wings allowed Concorde to attain a higher angle of attack than conventional aircraft, as it allowed the formation of large low pressure vortices over the entire upper wing surface, maintaining lift. It is this low pressure which caused Concorde to disappear into a bank of fog on humid days. These only formed at low air speeds, meaning that during the initial climb out and throughout the approach, Concorde would experience light turbulence and buffeting.
Throughout the entire approach, Concorde was on the "back side" of the drag curve.
Braniff International pilots flew both AF and BA Concordes (10 in total).
During the multi-venue Live Aid, when famine relief concerts were held on 13 July 1985, pop star Phil Collins flew a Concorde from London so that he could perform at both venues (London and Philadelphia) on the same day.
Concorde travelled, per passenger, 17 miles for each gallon of fuel (mpg)^[30] (an efficiency of 20 litres per hundred kilometres (l/100km)). This is comparable to a Gulfstream G550 business jet (~16 mpg or 18 l/100km per passenger)^[31], but much larger than, say a Boeing 747-400 (~91 mpg or 3.1 l/100km per passenger)^[32]
Concorde's cruising speed exceeded the top speed of the terminator. It was possible to take off from London just after sunset and see the sun rise in the west on the way to America.
Concorde flew fast enough that the weight of everyone onboard was temporarily reduced by about 1% when flying east. This was due to centrifugal effects since the airspeed added to the rotation speed of the Earth. Flying west, the weight increased by a smaller amount (about 0.3%), because it cancelled out the normal rotation, and, with it, the normal centrifugal force and replaced it with a smaller rotation in the opposite direction.^[33]
Concorde also flew high enough that the weight of everyone onboard was reduced by an additional 0.6% due to the increased distance from the centre of the Earth.
The speed of sound varies greatly with the air temperature, meaning that if Concorde entered a warm pocket of air, her speed could increase from Mach 2.0 to more than Mach 2.04, without her actual velocity changing. The speed of sound is around 332 m/s at standard temperature and pressure.

Specifications

General characteristics

Crew: 9
Capacity: 100 passengers
Length: 202 ft 4 in^[34] (61.66 m)
Wingspan: 84 ft 0 in (25.6 m)
Height: 40 ft 0 in (12.2 m)
Fuselage internal length: 129 ft 0 in (39.32 m)
Fuselage max external width: 9 ft 5 in (2.88 m)
Fuselage max internal width: 8 ft 7 in (2.63 m)
Fuselage max external height: 10 ft 10 in (3.32 m)
Fuselage max internal height: 6 ft 5 in (1.96 m)
Wing area: 3,856 ft² (358.25 m² )
Lift/drag ratio: Low speed- 3.94, Approach- 4.35, 250 knots, 10,000 ft- 9.27, Mach 0.94- 11.47, Mach 2.04- 7.14))
Empty weight: 173,500 lb (78,700 kg)
Useful load: 245,000 lb (111,130 kg)
Powerplant: 4× Rolls-Royce/SNECMA Olympus 593 Mk 610 afterburning turbojets
- Dry thrust: 32,000 lbf dry (140 kN)
- Thrust with afterburner: 38,050 lbf (169 kN) each

Performance

Maximum speed: Mach 2.04 (1,350 mph, 2,170 km/h)
Range: 3,900 nm (4,500 mi, 7,250 km)
Service ceiling: 60,000 ft (18,300 m)
Rate of climb: 1,525 m (5,000 ft)/min (25,41 m/s)
Wing loading: lb/ft² (kg/m²)
Thrust/weight: .373
Fuel consumption: 46.85 lb/mi (13.2 kg/km)
Maximum nose tip temperature: 260 °F (127 °C)

Comparison with other supersonic aircraft

The only other supersonic airliner in direct competition with Concorde was the Russian TU-144, and ultimately was a failure. Although the TU-144 entered service earlier, it was retired in 1978. The still-born project, the Boeing 2707 was America's entry into the supersonic sweepstakes.

Due to a rushed development program, the TU-144 was cruder and much less refined than Concorde, with cabin noise notably higher. The early version of the TU-144D had significantly lower range than Concorde, largely due to its underpowered engines. It required reheat to maintain Mach 2.0 and cruised at just Mach 1.6. The vehicle had poor control at low speeds, due to a simpler, dedicated supersonic wing design. In addition, the Concorde had sophisticated antilock brakes while the Tu-144 required parachutes to land. It also had two crashes, one at the Paris airshow, which made further sales impossible, and made things very difficult for Concorde as well, the other crash on a cargo flight. The later versions of the Tupolev had retractable canards for better low speed control and military engines from Tu-160 that gave them nearly the range of Concorde. It had 126 seats. With a top speed of Mach 2.35 (made possible due to titanium and steel leading edges), while theoretically a more competitive aircraft, this version was not exportable due to the military engines.

The American design was to have been larger, seating 300. It was also intended to reach higher speeds of up to Mach 3.0, which made the construction much more difficult, as high temperatures ruled out the use of duralumin. Running a few years behind Concorde, the extra costs of these features may have helped to kill the project. The discovery that sonic booms were quite capable of reaching the ground also meant that the aircraft was subject to the same environmental concerns that contributed to hindering commercial success of Concorde. The American government had spent over $1 billion on the project and finished empty-handed.^[35]

Possible replacements

In November 2003, European aviation company EADS, one of the members of the Airbus consortium, announced that it was considering working with Japanese companies to develop a larger, faster replacement for Concorde.^[36] However, recent news reports suggest only $1m is being invested every year into research, much less than the $1bn needed for the development of a viable supersonic airliner.

In October 2005, JAXA, the Japan Aerospace eXploration Agency, undertook aerodynamic testing of a scale model of a airliner designed to carry 300 passengers at Mach 2. If pursued to commercial deployment, it would be expected to be in service around 2020 - 2025.^[37]

Research into supersonic business jets is ongoing.

The British company, Reaction Engines Limited, with 50% EU money, are researching LAPCAT, a design for a hydrogen fuelled plane carrying 300 passengers, capable of flying nonstop from Brussels to Sydney at Mach 5+ in 4.6 hours.

Films and television

Concorde has been featured or mentioned in:

The Wild Geese (1978): Colonel Faulkner (Richard Burton) arrives at London Heathrow on Concorde.
The Concorde: Airport '79: Concorde's global prominence led it to feature as the star in the poorly received and outlandish film sequel in the Airport(film) series, The Concorde: Airport '79. The Concorde used for the live-action aerial filming was the same Air France Concorde that crashed 21 years later on 25 July 2000.
The Concorde Affair (Concorde Affaire in orig.) Italy 1979. Director: Ruggero Deodato
Moonraker (1979): James Bond arrives in Rio de Janeiro on an Air France Concorde. Air France flew Concorde on the Paris-Dakar-Rio route at the time.
The Long Good Friday (1980): Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins) flies into Heathrow on Concorde.
Superman II (1980): Superman overtakes Concorde on his way to Paris.
Doctor Who: Featured in the 1982 story "Time-Flight."
The Transformers (1984-1987): As the Aerialbot leader Silverbolt in the animated TV series. In the toy line, the Micromasters: "Supersonic" and "Skydive" also turn into Concordes.
Coming to America (1988): Prince Akeem (Eddie Murphy) and Semmi (Arsenio Hall) arrive in New York on a British Airways Concorde.
The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990): Maria Ruskin (Melanie Griffith) arrives in New York on an Air France Concorde. The film's Second Unit Director, Eric Schwab, went to considerable effort to calculate the exact time and day when a runway at JFK would line up exactly with the setting sun, to serve as a spectacular backdrop for the landing Concorde.
Absolutely Fabulous (1992-2004): Edina Monsoon and Patsy Stone made regular trips to New York aboard Concorde.
Snatch (2000): The character Cousin Avi flew on Concorde from New York City to London to see Doug the Head, then back, after an unexpected turn of events and again to London in the closing scene of the film.
Sabrina (1995): Linus Larrabe Harrison Ford takes an Air France Concorde from New York to Paris in order to meet Sabrina on time since she had left New York earlier on a conventional Air France flight.
Only Fools and Horses: In the 1996 Christmas episode, the family is seen aboard Concorde on their way home from America after attending the auction of the John Harrison pocket watch which made them millionaires.
The Parent Trap (1998 version): Hallie and her father take Concorde so that they can beat the twins' mother and Annie to London.
Cats & Dogs (2001) Concorde was used to transport secret agent dogs from the UK to the USA.
National Treasure (2004): Concorde is shown on the New York Harbour.
SuperSonic Dream (2005): A PBS NOVA documentary about Concorde

LI*NKS:http://www.concorde-jet.com/