Does anyone remember the beautiful Lockheed Constellation?

The Flight Detective
an airplane flying in the sky

The Lockheed Constellation, affectionately referred to as “Connie”, first flew on 9 January 1943. The aircraft initially entered service with the military, before starting regular passenger service on 6 February 1946 with TWA.

Seating between 62 and 95 passengers, the sleek Constellation was the first pressurised aircraft in regular service. A total of 856 were produced, with the last one rolling off the production line in 1958.

Lockheed Constellation Video

Following on from last weeks video about the Boeing 707, this week it’s off to Lockheed to see a promotional film from 1955 about building the aircraft. This runs for around 16 minutes.

With its distinctive triple tail and curved fuselage, the Lockheed Constellation opened up the world for many airlines. In Qantas service, it opened up the route from Sydney to London, the longest single aircraft service in the world.

Lockheed’s film shows the production line, the tooling and many things that needed to be done to manufacture the aircraft. It is an interesting look into how things were done back in the 1950s.

Virtually all major airlines in the west operated the Connie. The film shows some happy passengers wiling away their flight playing cards, which is what you’d do back then, before the advent of video entertainment.

The HARS Connie Today

The Historical Aircraft Restoration Society in Australia operates a Lockheed Constellation in flyable condition today. This is one of just two in the entire world that still takes flight. Below is a video from a night flight at a show in 2017.

Flames coming from the engines operating at high power was a thing with piston engines at take-off thrust. The short video runs about four minutes, showing take-off, a couple of flybys and landing. Extremely cool to see!

Overall Thoughts

Famous in the aviation industry, the Lockheed Constellation is a truly beautiful machine to behold. This was the way that you flew long distances, regularly operating translatlantic routes as easily as domestic sectors in the United States.

The fact there are two still flying is pretty amazing when you consider how old the aircraft is. Did you ever fly in a Connie? What was it like? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.

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Featured image by Qantas via The Lockheed Files.

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Charlie McEwan

I worked for a connie operator in UK sky tours / Euravia who became Britannia Airways, I joined in 1969 the Connies replaced by Bristol Britannia, I flew for a time as FE on B 707 what a fantastic era!

Brian Cole

In 1958, I was part of a company of Royal Army Service Corps amphibious DUKW drivers who were on our way to the South Pacific, to take part in the British nuclear tests at Christmas Island. We went out in small groups of four of five and my group flew from London Heathrow Airport in a QANTAS Super Constellation as far as San Fransisco; where we changed to another aircraft which took us to Honolulu. From there, The RAF flew us to the island.

David

My very first flight was in 1952. My mother and I flew from Los Angeles to New York (La Guardia) on a TWA Constellation. It stopped in Chicago, at Midway, on the eastbound flight and stopped in St. Louis on the westbound flight. It was the most exciting thing I had done since taking the Santa Fe Super Chief to New York with my mother in 1949. I loved flying and this was a wonderful first round trip flight for me. I guess this was an 049 constellation. All one class of service and all the windows were round on… Read more »

Steve Smith

Thanks

John Mooney

I was a pilot/Flt/engineer on the TWA Connie’s in 1965, the last flights were in April of 67. They were a lot of fun to operate and I enjoyed every minute of that time. Capt JPMooney TWA Retired

David

The last constellation I flew on was the SUPER G constellation on TWA. They had relegated that fabulous plane to a milk run flight from LAX to MKC but I flew it from LAX to PHX where I connected to a Frontier DC-3 from PHX to TUS. This was in 1962.

Pam

I flew with my brother and Mom to Hawaii from California in 1946 aboard a Connie; We were joining my Father who was stationed there in the Navy. The thing that sticks in my mind is hitting an air pocket while eating !! OOOPS, I’ve had enough. !!

Chuck Griffin

Gorgeous aircraft! I was born to late to get to fly one in the US, they were already pretty much phased out of mainline service by 1965 I think. I did get to tour the TWA one in Kansas City a few years ago. Would have loved to fly on one, makes me laugh now when I read all the trip reports online and posters on certain Av-geek sites whining about narrow body long hauls, lack of IFE etc… “8 hours without Wifi?! I would DIE!” Some of us would give up certain body parts for the experience of flying… Read more »

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