Lockheed Constellation
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11
MENTIONS
9
EPISODES
4
PODCASTS
Search complete. 11 mentions across 9 episodes found for "Lockheed Constellation".
Sep 10, 2026
Tail DraggerHOST
They were ahead of everyone else.
Tail DraggerHOST
While the rest of the world was still flying piston-engined airliners, while the Douglas DC-6s and Lockheed Constellations were grinding through the sky on four radial engines.
Tail DraggerHOST
The Haviland's chief designer, Ronald Bishop, was working on something that would make them all look like horse-drawn carriages.
Tail DraggerHOST
A passenger jet, a real one.
Tail DraggerHOST
In the early 1950s, the airline world ran on piston engines.
Tail DraggerHOST
The Douglas DC-7, the Lockheed Constellation, beautiful airplanes, the peak of piston technology.
Tail DraggerHOST
But the British had launched the de Havilland Comet on passenger routes, and the jet age was obviously coming.
Tail DraggerHOST
The question was who would be ready for it and with what.
Tail DraggerHOST
The Comet cruised above the weather.
Tail DraggerHOST
It flew nearly twice as fast as a Lockheed Constellation, and it did it in near silence.
Tail DraggerHOST
No propeller vibration, no roar of piston engines, just the muffled whine of four de Havilland Ghost turbojets buried in the wing roots and smooth air at altitude that passengers in 1952 had never experienced.
Tail DraggerHOST
The cabin was pressurized to a degree of comfort that felt almost impossible at those heights.
Tail DraggerHOST
Douglas DC-7s.
Tail DraggerHOST
Lockheed Constellations.
Tail DraggerHOST
Big, round-engined airplanes that had gotten bigger and faster and more comfortable since the end of the war.
Tail DraggerHOST
The Constellation in particular was an achievement.
Richard Maclean SmithHOST
You're listening to Unexplained, and I'm Richard McLean-Smith.
Richard Maclean SmithHOST
No one knows exactly when the United Airlines cockpit crew spotted the TWA Constellation dead ahead of them, or if they saw it at all.
Richard Maclean SmithHOST
But it was around 10.30am on the morning of June 30th, 1956, the United Airlines Flight 718 slammed into TWA Flight 2 from behind.
Richard Maclean SmithHOST
The left wingtip of the United's DC-7 struck the centre fin on the Constellation's tail and sliced straight through the rear fuselage, while simultaneously ripping open the underside of the baggage compartment with its propeller.
Richard Maclean SmithHOST
Only after landing back at Grand Canyon Airport did they hear of the missing airliners.
Richard Maclean SmithHOST
As dusk fell over the desert, The Hudgins flew to the vicinity where they'd seen smoke rising.
Richard Maclean SmithHOST
Rounding a rocky butte, they spotted the distinctive triple tail of the TWA constellation lying on a hillside above the Colorado River.
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Tail DraggerHOST
The crossing took roughly eight and a half hours.
Tail DraggerHOST
The Lockheed Constellation had done it in 18.
Tail DraggerHOST
The world got measurably smaller on that October morning, in a way that the steamship and the propeller airliner had never quite managed.
Tail DraggerHOST
London became a night's sleep away.
Jared AlbrechtHOST
Uh, there was an aviation record set on this day in 1945.
Jared AlbrechtHOST
A TWA Lockheed Constellation set a west to east transatlantic commercial record, flying 2,000 miles in six hours and 45 minutes, which is really slow by today's [laughs] standards.
Jared AlbrechtHOST
But, but back then, not bad.
Jared AlbrechtHOST
And just, just as a fun Jared add-on fact, when I was in high school, I worked at the Army Aviation Museum on Fort Rucker, where they actually had a Lockheed Constellation as part of the museum's collection.
Jared AlbrechtHOST
It ended up being...
Jared AlbrechtHOST
I don't know if the right word is purchased or how it works in the museum system, but it went to another museum, and not only did it went to another museum, they actually, while I was working there, repair- it flew itself to the other...
Tail DraggerHOST
This is Radio Hangar, I'm TailDrager, and this is The Hangar, where we spend a little time every day with the airplanes and the people who made this whole business of flying worth doing.
Tail DraggerHOST
And today we are going to talk about the Lockheed Constellation, the Connie.
Tail DraggerHOST
The most beautiful airliner ever built, and I will fight the man who says otherwise.
Tail DraggerHOST
Now before we climb into the story, let me take care of something.
Anders ForslundGUEST
... you know, what, what do I say? Like Indiana Jones type figure or something that is, like, at every, at every point in, in aviation development, he's there, and he has a hand in it.
Anders ForslundGUEST
Everything from, you know, the U-2 and, and the, the, the Lockheed Constellation, the U-2, and, uh-
Luka TomljenovicHOST
Wasn't he the test pilot early in his career?
Anders ForslundGUEST
Yeah.