Development
Lockheed had established a strong position in commercial airliner production with its piston-engined Constellation series and was approached by Capital Airlines to develop a turboprop airliner, but with no interest from other American carriers, the company did not produce a design and Capital went on to order 60 British Vickers Viscount four-engined turboprop airliners. In 1954 the company offered a twin-engined design, the CL-303, to meet an American Airlines requirement; it was a high-wing design for 60 to 70 passengers but again the design failed to interest other carriers.
American Airlines then revised its requirement and specified a four-engine design for 75 passengers and a range of 2000 miles (3220 km). To meet this Lockheed proposed a new design, the CL-310 with a low wing and either four Rolls-Royce Darts or Napier Elands. The CL-310 design met the American Airlines requirement but Eastern Airlines wanted an aircraft with more range and 85 to 90 seats. Lockheed modified and enlarged the CL-310 design to use the Allison 501-D13, a civilian version of the T56 originally developed for the prototype Lockheed C-130 Hercules military transport.
This design was launched as the Model 188 with an order for 35 aircraft by American Airlines on June 8, 1955, followed by an Eastern Airlines order for 40 on September 27, 1955. The first aircraft took 26 months to complete and by that time Lockheed had orders for 129 aircraft. The prototype, a Model 188A, first flew on December 6, 1957. and a was awarded a type certificate by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on 22 August 1958. The first delivery was to Eastern Airlines on October 8, 1958 although it did not enter service until January 1959.
In 1957 the United States Navy issued a requirement for an advanced maritime patrol aircraft. Lockheed proposed a development of the Electra which was later placed into production as the P-3 Orion, which saw much greater success. The Orion approaches nearly 50 years of front-line service.
Read more about this topic: Lockheed L-188 Electra
Famous quotes containing the word development:
“Somehow we have been taught to believe that the experiences of girls and women are not important in the study and understanding of human behavior. If we know men, then we know all of humankind. These prevalent cultural attitudes totally deny the uniqueness of the female experience, limiting the development of girls and women and depriving a needy world of the gifts, talents, and resources our daughters have to offer.”
—Jeanne Elium (20th century)
“If you complain of people being shot down in the streets, of the absence of communication or social responsibility, of the rise of everyday violence which people have become accustomed to, and the dehumanization of feelings, then the ultimate development on an organized social level is the concentration camp.... The concentration camp is the final expression of human separateness and its ultimate consequence. It is organized abandonment.”
—Arthur Miller (b. 1915)
“Women, because of their colonial relationship to men, have to fight for their own independence. This fight for our own independence will lead to the growth and development of the revolutionary movement in this country. Only the independent woman can be truly effective in the larger revolutionary struggle.”
—Women’s Liberation Workshop, Students for a Democratic Society, Radical political/social activist organization. “Liberation of Women,” in New Left Notes (July 10, 1967)