Saturday, July 14, 2012

The Lockheed L-188 Electra and NASA N429NA

It's been a while since I have spoken to an aviation postcard, so today I thought I would show a couple cards of the Lockheed L-188 Electra.  These are not vintage cards, but they are vintage photographs.

The Lockheed L-188 was a civilian version of the Lockheed P-3 Submarine chaser and was built starting in 1957.  It unfortunately had a rather spotty safety record early on, and was replaced by jet aircraft after only 170 were built.  Compare this to 757 total built for the P-3.





This aircraft has a special place in my past as I flew on the NASA Electra N429NA when I was in high school.  I had volunteered to work at the NASA Ames research center in the atmospheric research group.  They used to put exerimental platforms onboard U-2 aircraft, but also onboard planes like the Electra.  We would fly around collecting samples of the atmosphere at different altitudes and bring them back to the lab for analysis.  It was a boat load of fun!  


Last I heard...this aircraft was converted into a fire fighting aircraft by Neptune Aviation in Montana.  Here is another picture of the airplane during its conversion process.

Until next time...

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