Post by volkerboehme on Dec 15, 2008 14:13:37 GMT -5
Hi all,
here is a pic that I found quite surprising. I'm not able to link directly to it, so here is a link instead.
www.jamd.com/image/g/3361101
I had never seen such a Lufthansa livery before, and I had never heard of a Lufthansa L-1049C. So I looked further in my books and on the internet, and I was surprised even more. Here's the story:
The plane in question, reg. N6201C, is the very first true Super Constellation, c/n 4001, after the stretching of the original prototype. It made its first flight in July 5, but was retained by Lockheed for certification purposes until delivered to Eastern March 18th, 1952. It spent its entire flying career with Eastern, befor rotting away at Miami, to be scrapped about 1973. Here's a rather sad pic at the end of its career:
www.airliners.net/photo/Lockheed-L-1049-Super/0463189/M/
To make it short - it's a fake. In the Stringfellow/Bowers book, there's an identical pic of the same airplane, in bare metal (p.64). The city in the background is perfectly identical, the position of the roads and buildings. No way someone could have reproduced such a pic in such a detail.
Maybe it was retouched for marketing purposes by Lockheed - Locheed did actually paint Air Force an C-69, c/n 1974, in Easten colors, even though Eastern eventually did not buy any L-49 but waited for the L-649 instead. A pic is in Stringfellow/Bowers on p.38. Any way, retouching a photo was certainly cheaper than repainting a whole plane, and Lufthansa did wait for the L-1049 before buying any Lockheed.
Best regards,
Volker
here is a pic that I found quite surprising. I'm not able to link directly to it, so here is a link instead.
www.jamd.com/image/g/3361101
I had never seen such a Lufthansa livery before, and I had never heard of a Lufthansa L-1049C. So I looked further in my books and on the internet, and I was surprised even more. Here's the story:
The plane in question, reg. N6201C, is the very first true Super Constellation, c/n 4001, after the stretching of the original prototype. It made its first flight in July 5, but was retained by Lockheed for certification purposes until delivered to Eastern March 18th, 1952. It spent its entire flying career with Eastern, befor rotting away at Miami, to be scrapped about 1973. Here's a rather sad pic at the end of its career:
www.airliners.net/photo/Lockheed-L-1049-Super/0463189/M/
To make it short - it's a fake. In the Stringfellow/Bowers book, there's an identical pic of the same airplane, in bare metal (p.64). The city in the background is perfectly identical, the position of the roads and buildings. No way someone could have reproduced such a pic in such a detail.
Maybe it was retouched for marketing purposes by Lockheed - Locheed did actually paint Air Force an C-69, c/n 1974, in Easten colors, even though Eastern eventually did not buy any L-49 but waited for the L-649 instead. A pic is in Stringfellow/Bowers on p.38. Any way, retouching a photo was certainly cheaper than repainting a whole plane, and Lufthansa did wait for the L-1049 before buying any Lockheed.
Best regards,
Volker
