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The Legendary Lockheed ConstellationBy Stephan Wilkinson | Aviation History | Single Page | 10 comments | Print This Post | Email This Post So in the summer of 1939, Lockheed began on its own to develop the Model 49 Excalibur A, soon to be designated the L-049 Constellation. It had the iconic fishy fuselage shape; a scaled-up P-38 wing; nacelles intended to hold four of the most awesome power plants of the time, Wright R-3350 supercharged twin-row radials; and an array of Fowler flaps borrowed directly from the Lockheed 14. The flaps were as precedential at the time as a 747's array of fully extended tin laundry would be in the 1960s: 10 complex slotted sections on the wings plus a pair of center-section flaps under the fuselage. Subscribe Today
An early Constellation proposal had the big radials cooled by reverse flow: cooling air went in via leading-edge wing scoops, blew through the engines from rear to front and exited between each engine's prop spinner and the cowling ring. It looked cool, no pun, with bullet-shaped nacelle/spinner units that presaged the turboprop designs of the 1950s, but it turned out there was no significant cooling-drag reduction. Another Lockheed brainstorm was a canard Constellation, a tail-first design. Not surprisingly, the airlines were entirely unreceptive to such a radical airframe. It looked like the second iteration of Lockheed's four-engine transport wouldn't get off the drawing board either, but along came Howard Hughes with a secret order for 40 airliners, if Lockheed could meet his performance requirements. Hughes wanted to get a jump on his competition—mainly United and American—and not only demanded that the project remain quiet but stipulated that no other transcontinental airline be allowed to buy a Constellation for two years after Hughes' TWA put them into service. American Airlines was so infuriated by being shut out that they vowed to never again buy a Lockheed airliner. Their pique lasted only until Lockheed's next airliner, the turboprop Electra, was proposed in 1954. American ordered 40 the following year. Much is made in some Constellation histories of Howard Hughes being a whack job, a crazy man, a weirdo. This is an exaggeration. The multimillionaire aviator's true goofiness began with his addiction to painkillers as the result of the dreadful injuries he suffered while crash-landing the prototype Hughes XF-11 four-engine reconnaissance plane in July 1946. But he'd had his bell rung twice before in bad crashes during the late 1920s and mid-'30s, and they may well have done neurological damage that led to a case of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Nobody knew what OCD was in those days, but if anything, it made Hughes a detail-oriented perfectionist. In fact, Hughes was sharp enough to borrow the number-two prototype Constellation, a C-69 owned by the U.S. Army Air Forces. He quickly repainted it in TWA colors and used it to set a west-to-east transcontinental record in April 1944 from Burbank, Calif., to over Washington National in six hours and 58 minutes. His co-pilot was Jack Frye, TWA's president, and Lockheed designer Kelly Johnson was along for the ride. (So was actress Ava Gardner, Howard's girlfriend at the time.) Whether on this trip or another test flight, Johnson never developed any admiration for Hughes' piloting skills. "He damned near killed us both," Johnson once admitted. On the return leg back to Burbank, Hughes stopped at Wright Field, outside Dayton, Ohio—today Wright-Patterson Air Force Base—and in a typically brilliant piece of PR picked up Orville Wright for Wright's last-ever flight. Orville had been the pilot on the first true powered flight in history, and now he was given the right-seat chance to handle the controls of an airplane that, four decades later, represented some of the most advanced technology available to civil aviation—at this early point in the Connie's life a 313-mph cruise, 2,850-mile range, 8,800 horsepower, hydraulically boosted controls and cabin pressurization. To put that into perspective, four decades ago the Boeing 707 had been in service for years, supersonic fighters were commonplace and the 747 had just made its first flight. Little is all that different today. Pages: 1 2 3 4 5Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to
            Tags: Aircraft, Aviation History, Flight Technology
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10 Comments to “The Legendary Lockheed Constellation”
This article bought me fond memories of riding my bicycle out to the Tampa airport and spend hours watching the planes land and take off. There was a back way onto the airport property and we would ride through the woods and sit right by the runways. Often we would sit on the end of the rinway so that the planes would be right overhead. never gave a thought to being crushed. This was back around 1957. I always thought the Connies were the coolest thing built.
By Gene on May 17, 2009 at 10:11 pm
In 1971 while on the Civil Air Patrol International Air Cadet Exchange I flew into Berlin in a "Connie" with the seats facing backwards. The plane was fitted with a bar and a steward…however being cadets the bar was closed to us.
By Ltcol on May 29, 2009 at 2:01 pm
…those of us who flew in the USN versions, called R7V's and EC-121's, were very fond of our "Connies." One R7V (444) made so many belly-landings due to landing gear problems that she earned the nicknames "cripple-4" and "flying w-ore" for being on her belly so often…but they flew well and usually reliably.
…those of us who flew in the AEW/CIC "Warning Star" versions, called WV-2's and EC-121K, P, etc., served our country during both the 'Cold War' (flying Pacific and Atlantic seaward extensions of DEW Line) and Viet Nam war…as night surviellance for the 7th fleet, ECM/Countermeasures all over the far east, or as weather ("Typhoon Trackers" and "Hurricane Hunters") reconnaissance.
By Earles on May 31, 2009 at 6:05 pm
In late '69 or early '70 a group of Spanish speaking gentlemen taxied up to the rear of the Capitol Airways hangar where we were beginning to dispose of our "Connies" and offered to buy one. The deal was made, the "Connie" flew off to ???? Several days later there was a news report of an "Connie airliner" bombing Fidel Castro's palace in Havana with 55 gallon drums rigged like Molotov cocktails. Anti-aircraft fire failed to bring down the aircraft which disappeared into the night according to news reports. The ex-Capitol Connie?????? Who knows, but we were quite good at maintaining and operating the much loved "Connie".
By Jerry on Jun 1, 2009 at 5:33 pm
We took Connies over to Southeast Asia in 1967 for Igloo White, McNamara's Electronic Battlefield. Ours were EC-121R's, and there were a few EC-121S models at Korat, as well as Warning Star models. Ours were festooned with antennae like porcupines.
By George Kamburoff on Jun 17, 2009 at 4:19 pm
As a small boy, my family would go to the airport to meet my grandparents, when they departed or returned from a trip. TWA was the carrier at the time, and all boarding and deplaning took place using outside stairways. We could see everything, from the passengers and flight crews, to the ground crews checking out the aircraft. But the best part, was watching the Connie's engines start, belching the smoke and fire that they were famous for, seeing the wheel chocks pulled, and then seeing her swing around as she began her taxi for takeoff. The air blast from the big props was what I lived for, and all of this occurred as I stood with my father, behind a 3 foot chain link fence. It was definitely a simpler time back then.
By Bob Weber on Jun 27, 2009 at 2:36 am
As one who has restored, flown, and performed maintenance on a Connie, I can truthfully tell you what a magnificient airplane it is. Back in the early 90's, I was involved with a group of volunteers who restored a very sorrowful eye sore that was stored at the Camarillo Airport in Camarillo, CA. The group was the Constellation Historical Society, and how we transformed this airplane to flying status is a true testimony to the hard work of its members, and after five years of this hard work, N73544, Lockheed c/n 4175, took to the air again in June of 1994. It was a very emotional thing to watch pilot Frank Butorac and Flight Engineer Jimmy Jones put Connie through her paces that day, and I still get emotional when I think of that flight. Afterwards, we put N73544 on the air show circuit where she was always a welcome sight, and we did that for almost eight years. I'll never forget that time, and it became a family affair with my wife and I associated with Jerry Steele, Flight Engineer and his wife Joyce, John and Cheryl Arp, pilots Chuck Grant and Pat Farrell. Today, N73544 flies the European skies for the Swiss group Super Constellation Flyers Association as HB-RSC, and she still looks as beautiful as she did when we flew her in the United States.
By Del Mitchell on Jul 1, 2009 at 1:21 pm
I flew Connies with AEWBARRONPAC out of NAS Barbers Pt Hi and NS Midway Island from 1962 to 1965.
We used R7V's (straight Connies) for training flights. My favorite story is when I made a ONE engine landing. We were downwind to Runway 4 at BBP simulating 2 engines out (3 & 4 at idle or "zero-thrust" ). Just prior to the "180" "brrrrrp" "Fire Warning No. 1" OK "Feather No.1, execute fire emergency procedures,. "Checkpool 07 cleared to land R/W 4" .
We fx'd #1, held the gear until lined up, and landed…but forgot to bring up 3 & 4!
R7V's were very sweet. The Wv-2"s on the other hand were another story. As one instructor pilot told me in the landing pattern… " It's like a helping a sweet old lady to cross the street…just don't be rough on the controls or she'll lean back…hard." Those 300 gallon wingtip tanks made her quite slugish in roll and the flow around the upper radome required you to use "top rudder" in turns.
Nice article…brought back lots of memories.
Jim Swift
By Jim Swift on Nov 14, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Came across this in a Nov, 1956 Popular Mechanics mag:
Quieter Airline Flights
Tests on the Lockheed Super Constellation have shown that the position of the plane’s propellers as they spin has a serious effect on the noise level in the cabin. During the tests it was found that the two right engines running together at the same speed made less noise when they were 60 degrees out of phase. Under ideal phasing conditions, the noise level in the cabin can be cut by 15.5 decibels, mostly in the low tones which are difficult to muffle.
By J Dahlem on Jan 14, 2010 at 11:47 am
As a LtJg in 1963/64 I commanded the EC121K(wv2) out of Midway Island for fourteen hour patrols up to just south of the Aleutians Umnak Isle. My crew were four 'Jg's, three Ensigns, eight EM's and two Chiefs who rode the panel. The Navy is not stupid. They sent along those two chiefs to keep an eye on me.
The Connie was a rugged airplane. I remember ploughing through weather so rough the instrument panel shook so hard I could not read anything except the attitude gyro and it was rollocking so violently that I could not keep up with its motions/airplane attitude. Usually we came back to Midway with less airplane that we had at TO. Some part was resting on the bottom of the North Pacific. Harald A. Smedal
By Harald A. Smedal on Feb 10, 2010 at 3:49 pm