While we are all doing a group drool at this sleek beauty, perhaps we should remember who “created” her. Howard Hughes, at the helm of his recent acquisition, TWA, wanted a “secret weapon” to challenge all his competition, and in 1939, contacted Lockheed with an offer to buy 35 airplanes of a new specification (his). This interest got the ball rolling, but the engineering team at Lockheed was already ahead of Mr. Hughes and was playing with an even more ambitious project that later evolved into the Lockheed L1049C in 1951. It should not come as a surprise to you that one of that team’s leaders was Clarance “Kelly” Johnson.
“Turbo-compounding”, you say? Yea!! That’s right! Turbine wheels in a piston engine torquing in another 500+ horsepower directly to the crank (and that was not even related to the super-charging). If this does not justify heavy drooling, I don’t what will. Ahhh, what memories!