Connie

Like any other ground-bound aircraft, the big Lockheed Constellation looked oafish, brooding, clumsy. But the engineers and newsmen out to see its first flight eyed the newest four-engined U.S. transport plane with respect and the feeling that they might be looking at a figure of the post-war future.

"Connie" was built to be a world traveler (on specifications laid down by TWA before the war). Her Wright engines packed more than 8,000 h.p.--how much more the Army would not allow Lockheed to say. Her engineers had built her to span the continent in one hop of eight hours. With a full passenger load (52) she can outspeed a Zero. With any kind of load, she has an astonishing economy of operation: one gallon of fuel to the mile.

Up front in the Constellation was scholarly Eddie Allen, famed big-plane test pilot (whose hand on the controls cuts first-flight insurance rates in half). Methodically he got his engines started, warmed them, taxied out onto the field.

Connie dashed down the runway with her engines in full cry, dropped her bellow to a mutter, stopped, turned around again. Smoke plumed from one of her engine nacelles. But fire there meant less danger than it had meant in older ships. In each fireproof engine housing were 16 thermostatic fire warnings and an extinguishing system to put carbon dioxide just where it was needed. The blaze, from a backfire, died out.

Now, after the first run, she was ready. She was down the runway and off. Eddie Allen tucked up her legs and she whisked away from the field, slim, slick, slightly bent in her fore-and-aft line so that her nose drooped like an ant-eater's. An hour later she had landed at Muroc Lake and the Army Air Forces had her.

The Air Forces will have many more like her, for the Army will get all that Lockheed can make. Built for the luxury trade, the Constellations will keep some of their comfort features, notably the supercharging system which keeps pressure in the cabin at the equivalent of 8,000 ft. while they fly at their best altitude--20,000 ft.--or crawl up as far as 35,000 to get over storms.

To the Air Forces the utility of the Constellation is obvious: she will be the fastest, most efficient land-based freight hauler in existence, at a time when airmen direly need anything that will get a load over long distances.

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