With the possible exception of the Concorde, I believe that all of the candidates for the title of Most Beautiful Airplane Ever bear the Lockheed name. My personal pick is Lindbergh's Lockheed Sirius float plane. Absolute perfection of form.
@@greghartford9316 yes. The Vega had a wooden frame, laminated plywood skin with monocoque covered wings. This is why so few of them survived. It was actually a late 20's design but still had that mid/late 30's look. It took a few more years before all metal planes became the norm. The Vega is still a beautiful plane, has that all metal art deco look of the 30's.
This particular Vega is a DL1, built by Detroit Aircraft Co., with an all metal fuselage and the usual wood wing. Only a handful were built before Detroit Aircraft went out of business.
Amelia Earhart crossed the Atlantic in one of those : that plane is an icon, a treasure. Looks like the pilot had a lesser view than the passengers : Those windows are huge ! Would pay top dollar for a ride 👍
Great production. To appreciate fully use good headphones the stills with the sound track at the end are a great music video. That is how aviation is supposed to sound.
Wow, they actually managed to make the visibility even _worse_ than the standard Vega! that is almost impressive. The original pretty much only had a decent view upwards, this one doesn't even have that.
I remember one pilot of the day’s description of flying a Vega, limited forward visibility and less in the other directions with a glide ratio approaching a bricks. Lol
Yes, but that wreck of Draco....something about it just didn't feel right, not that any wreck feels right. Restorations of this sort pay tribute to genuine genius (Northrop and Vultee) and are on another level of importance, IMO.
G'day, Yeah, it seems to hail from before the invention of Aerodynamic Fillets between Wing and Fuselage, the Horizontal Tail has Fillets, the Fin has small ones ; but the Wing has none worth mentioning. A sort of minimalist flavour of Art Nouveau, Art Deco, almost Cubist ? (lol). ;-p Ciao !
Prog X It was State Of The Art technology in it's day, a one-eyed pilot called Wiley Post had one with a jettisonable Undercarraige and a *very* primitive Pressure-Suit to secure the Absolute Altitude Record, and when he left the wheels on it he circumnavigated the World... But it kinda looks like somebody found a Wing off one 'plane and stuck it on the top of some other Fuselage entirely, the way people do after a day of crashing at the local R/C Flying Club. Have a good one, ;-p Ciao !
And the slower Biplanes fate was sealed forever...A big progress done...Aviation without speed and visibility is no progress Anyone knows where the word Vega came from? It is a Spanish last name..sort of El Zorro, Diego De La Vega...
That seems like the worst airplane design imaginable. It's ugly, very difficult to get in and out of, and the visibility is awful, with your head right between the wing roots, how do you see anything? why in the heck would you restore that thing? Puke.
A lot of older planes cockpits are between the wings, to help balance the plane. Vegas made history in their day. They were faster than their military cousins, and even some purpose built racers, and set numerous speed and altitude records. Wiley Post was the first to fly using a pressure suit, and did so in a turbocharged Vega. That's how the aeronautical world found out that flying at higher altitudes was more efficient, due to decreased drag. As far as it's looks, the Vega is considered by many to be very beautiful. I'mguessing. the same can't be said for you. I'm sure your mommy is still proud of you though.
A wild thought - turning that thing into a flying fuel tank and taking it around the world - yikes , you mean It’s already been done ??!! Fly high, Wiley, Will and Winnie Mae.