Design and Development
Some of Lockheed's wooden designs, such as the Orion, had been built by Detroit Aircraft Corporation with metal fuselages. However, the Electra was Lockheed's first all-metal and twin-engine design by Hall Hibbard. The name Electra came from a star in the Pleiades. The prototype made its first flight on February 23, 1934 with Marshall Headle at the controls.
Wind tunnel work on the Electra was undertaken at the University of Michigan. Much of the work was performed by a student assistant, Clarence Johnson. He suggested two changes be made to the design: changing the single tail to double tails (later a Lockheed trademark), and deleting oversized wing fillets. Both of these suggestions were incorporated into production aircraft. Upon receiving his master's degree, Johnson joined Lockheed as a regular employee, ultimately leading the Skunk Works in developing advanced aircraft such as the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird.
The Lockheed Electra was one of the first commercial passenger aircraft to come equipped with mud guards as standard equipment. Before the Electra, only aircraft with fixed landing gear had mud guards.
Read more about this topic: Lockheed Model 10 Electra
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