Bought, but not delivered

[Deleted]

This is a Lockheed L-1694A Starliner of Linee Aree Italiane taking off at Burbanks in 1957.




Some might eventually already know the story of this aircraft.

Linee Aeree Italiane, at the end of 1956, placed an order for four Lockheed L-1649 Starliners for using them on Rome-New York route. All of the four planes had already been built and painted in LAI colours at the factory in Burbank. the first one, which had been registered I-ZAMA, and the second one had already begun the pre-delivery flight tests when, on September 1st 1957, LAI was merged into Alitalia. The new Alitalia-Linee Aeree Italiane cancelled the order and the aircraft also went to TWA.

Manuele Villa did a repaint of the aircraft, which in fact brought me to the story. He is undoubtedly known as a talented repainter. Unfortunately his texture isn't absolutely faithful, and he choose a wrong model (radar nose) compared to the orignal picture. Nevefthelss, it fits well with classic era.









BTW, it very strong reminds to an other, but almost similar story involving Swissair. In 1950, after lengthy studies, which mainly involved a comparison between the proven Lockheed Constellation L-049 and the DC-6 offered by Douglas, the Swissair management initially decided to take over two used Constellations from the Dutch KLM on a lease basis, with the intention of later placing its own order with Lockheed for two brand-new Constellation L-749s.

A cockpit crew was delegated to Amsterdam to take delivery of the rental aircraft and transfer them to Zurich. The two units were already wearing the Swissair colors; the designations HB-IBI and HB-IBJ had been chosen for their registration. Shortly before departure in the Netherlands, however, we received a request from Zurich to return home without any aircraft. The unexpected devaluation of the British pound had drastically worsened Swissair's economic situation. As a result, all plans for the procurement of a new long-haul fleet were suspended, and the planning studies had to be restarted.

Bernard

[Tom/CalClassic]

Nice. The Starliner was different from the other Connies since they used the same nose cone for radar and non-radar versions. After TWA painted them, you could tell them from the others since they had a white nose cone instead of black. Some sources state the fuselage of the Starliner was longer than the Super Connie’s, but it was just the longer nose cone.

So unless the black nose is in the model (as I recall some are) you could paint it to match the rest of the fuselage.

[wolfgang69]

I have Manuele Vila's repaint of the Starliner, so I knew that LAI ordered these planes and that they eventually went to TWA. What I did not know is that they were actually completed in their livery before the order was canceled. 
The fact that Swissair almost bought Constellations is also new to me. 
Thanks for the history lesson, Bernard! 

Regarding the fuselage of the Starliner, I thought that was the same as the Super G with the radar nose? 
And did TWA really fly the LAI Starliners without radar when they got them, or did they eventually modify them? 

[Tom/CalClassic]

I have seen pictures of them with white noses, which means they probably didn’t have radar. I believe they were among the first to be converted to freighters. They would have had to have been fitted with radar by 1964 if they flew in the US.