Hobbies And Interests
Model 10 Electra
The Model 10 may be best recognized as the aircraft Amelia Earhart was flying when she disappeared in 1937. She appears in many iconic photographs with this plane before her final flight. The 10-passenger airliner first flew for Northwest Airlines in 1934. Model 10 variants A through C were supplied with 440 horsepower or 450 horsepower Pratt &Whitney Wasp engines; the E variant had a 600 horsepower Pratt &Whitney. By the end of the 1930s, eight U.S. airlines included Model 10 Electras among their fleet, as well as several European carriers. A total of 148 were produced as civilian airliners; some of these were subsequently pressed into military use.
Model 12 Electra
The Model 12 was a smaller, six-passenger version of the Model 10, sometimes called the "Electra Junior." Though it was a downsize of the Model 10, the Model 12 used the same 450 horsepower Pratt &Whitney Wasp engine as its bigger sister and was significantly faster, as well. Rejected by the airlines because of its small passenger capacity, most were used as executive transports and in that capacity were the earliest forerunners of the familiar corporate airplane of today. Many Model 12s were also used by the military to transport ranking officers and their staffs and some saw use in World War II as surveillance planes. About 100 Model 12s were produced.
Model 18 Lodestar
The Lodestar was an expanded version of the basic Model 10 design with a fuselage stretched over five feet. In an airliner configuration, it could carry up to 26 passengers. One thousand horsepower Wright engines were installed in early versions of the Lodestar and later variants were powered by Pratt &Whitney Hornets. After Pearl Harbor, many Model 18s were taken from the airlines by the Army and Navy and most subsequent production went straight to the military as C-56, C-57, C-59, and C-60 variants. As a commercial airliner, the Lodestar did not fare well against the competition posed by the wildly popular Douglas DC-3 and was soon overshadowed by Lockheed's own Constellation. A total of 624 Lodestars were produced.
Survivors
There are about 20 Model 10 Electras and 30 Model 12 Electras still registered in the United States in 2011. About 45 Lodestars survive in the United States; less than 20 are in airworthy condition and the remainder are preserved in museums.