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93-616: IKONOS originated under the Lockheed Corporation as the Commercial Remote Sensing System ( CRSS ) satellite. In April 1994 Lockheed was granted one of the first licenses from the U.S. Department of Commerce for commercial satellite high-resolution imagery. On 25 October 1995 partner company Space Imaging received a license from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to transmit telemetry from

186-685: A Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 in Korea, although by this time the F-80 (as it was redesignated in June 1948) was already considered obsolete. Starting with the P-80, Lockheed's secret development work was conducted by its Advanced Development Division, more commonly known as the Skunk works . The name was taken from Al Capp 's comic strip Li'l Abner . This organization has become famous and spawned many successful Lockheed designs, including

279-448: A crude ice runway and headed for the island of Spitsbergen. For the first 500 miles (800 km), the weather was clear. Then dense clouds forced frequent course changes. They made landfall at Grant Land in Canada 's northern reaches. Then, as they edged around the northern tip of Greenland , they encountered more bad weather. Within 200 miles (320 km) of their goal, they encountered

372-537: A garage in Hollywood in January 1927. While Loughead continued his real estate business, he arrived every afternoon to help on the plane. The first major task was to build a concrete mold, shaped like an elongated bath tub, for molding half of the laminated wood fuselage. Two halves were made and then fastened to a skeleton framework of wood to form the fuselage. Next came the construction of the plywood-covered cantilever wing,

465-708: A high-wing Vega seaplane. After he and Eielson arrived in Antarctica in December 1928, they used the Vegas to make the first flights in history over the continent, and to explore much of its uncharted territory from the air. Thus the Vega became the first plane to discover new land, and Wilkins named many of its features after his friends and backers. He named the Lockheed Mountains after the builder of his plane. The Wilkins expeditions to

558-438: A honeycomb design to reduce mass. The detectors at the focal plane included a panchromatic sensor with 13,500 pixels cross-track, and four multispectral sensors (blue, green, red, and near-infrared) each with 3,375 pixels along-track. Its nadir image swath was 11.3 km (7 mi). Total instrument mass was 171 kg (377 lb) and it consumed 350 watts. Lockheed Corporation The Lockheed Corporation

651-508: A leafy texture. Lockheed ranked tenth among United States corporations in the value of wartime production contracts. All told, Lockheed and its subsidiary Vega produced 19,278 aircraft during World War II, representing six percent of war production, including 2,600 Venturas , 2,750 Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombers (built under license from Boeing ), 2,900 Hudson bombers, and 9,000 Lightnings. During World War II, Lockheed, in cooperation with Trans-World Airlines (TWA), had developed

744-608: A major aerospace and defense company, and in 1995 merged with Martin Marietta to form Lockheed Martin . In 1930, Loughead formed the Lockheed Brothers Aircraft Corporation in Glendale, California , and developed the experimental Olympia Duo-four, a five-place high-wing monoplane with two engines mounted side by side in the wood monocoque fuselage nose. It had a plywood-covered wing and wheel pants. The fuselage

837-516: A mechanic at $ 6 a week ($ 173.00 in 2020 dollars). By 1909, he was driving race cars. In Chicago, Victor Loughead convinced Plew to acquire rights to one of the Montgomery's gliders and to buy a Curtiss pusher biplane. Plew hired Allan Loughead to convert the Montgomery glider to a powered aircraft. When Allan left for Chicago, he said, "I expect to see the time when aviation will be the safest means of transportation at 40 to 50 miles per hour, and

930-446: A patent. Its foldable wings allowed storage in a garage, and the lower wings could be rotated to act as ailerons and airbrakes. Because no suitable engines were available, the company designed and built a 25-horsepower water-cooled engine for the S-1. The S-1 was tested successfully at Redwood City, California , in 1919 by Gilbert Budwig and flew well. After the S-1 completed test flights,

1023-520: A pippin!" Wilkins selected Arctic flyer Carl Ben Eielson to pilot the Vega on a planned flight from Barrow, Alaska , the northernmost settlement in Alaska, over the Arctic region to the island of Spitsbergen near Norway . After Eielson tested the plane, it was shipped to Fairbanks, Alaska . Eielson and Wilkins then flew it to Barrow. From there, after waiting three weeks for good weather, they took off from

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1116-530: A raging blizzard. Fuel was dangerously low, but Eielson spun down through a hole in the clouds and landed safely on snow covered land. Unable to see anything in the blizzard, the men curled up in the cabin. The blizzard blew for four days. On the fifth day the weather cleared, and they spent six hours clearing a makeshift runway in the snow. When they became airborne they saw the radio masts of Grønfjorden , Spitsbergen ahead. In less than 30 minutes, they landed there after spending 20.5 hours airborne and five days on

1209-587: A real estate salesman while occasionally serving as an aviation consultant. Allan Lockheed kept an informal relationship with the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation until his death in 1969 in Tucson, Arizona . Allan Loughead was born in Niles, California , in 1889, the youngest son of Flora and John Loughead. He had a half-brother Victor, a sister Hope, and a brother Malcolm Loughead . Flora Haines Loughead

1302-588: A ride. The Model G made three flights that day. Allan Lockheed recalled in 1942 that the Model G was built mostly with hand tools and called the aircraft "one of the first successful three place tractor seaplanes in the United States." While the Model G, the first plane to bear the Loughead (Lockheed) name, was far ahead of its time, few would pay $ 10 to fly in it. Mamlock soon lost his enthusiasm for aviation and seized

1395-481: A rough landing. Flint worked on the engine while Meyerhoffer and Ferneau took a train to Yuma to have the broken tailskid repaired. The trio cleared a makeshift runway, took off, and landed at Gila Bend, Arizona for fuel. On the second takeoff attempt, the engine quit, and the plane crashed nose first into the ground. That ended the F-lA's transcontinental flight. When Loughead Aircraft completed its two HS-2L flying boats for

1488-567: A share. With the stock market crash in October 1929, Detroit Aircraft stock fell to 12.5 cents a share and by 1932 Lockheed Aircraft was bankrupt. A group of investors headed by brothers Robert Gross and Courtlandt S. Gross , and including Walter Varney bought the Lockheed company out of receivership in 1932. Allan Lockheed returned as a consultant but had no formal management role with his namesake company. The Lockheed Aircraft Company later became

1581-534: A slate of his own choosing, since he was the largest investor. His board nominations included former Texas Senator John Tower , the onetime chairman of the Armed Services Committee , and Admiral Elmo Zumwalt Jr ., a former Chief of Naval Operations. Simmons had first begun accumulating Lockheed stock in early 1989 when deep Pentagon cuts to the defense budget had driven down prices of military contractor stocks, and analysts had not believed he would attempt

1674-674: A three-axis stabilized spacecraft designed by Lockheed Martin Space Systems . The design later became known as the LM-900 satellite bus and was optimized to carry remote sensing payloads. Four reaction wheels stabilized the spacecraft's altitude, which was measured by two star trackers and a Sun sensor . Orbital position information was provided by a GPS receiver. The spacecraft body was a hexagonal design of 1.83 by 1.57 meters (6.0 by 5.2 ft) and 817 kilograms (1,800 lb), with 1.5 kilowatts of power provided by three solar panels. Its design life

1767-619: The Belgian Order of the Golden Crown . Local movie studios paid $ 50 an hour for flight time in the F-1 and $ 50 an hour while on standby. In 1919, Loughead Aircraft entered the small aircraft market with the single-seat S-1 Sport Biplane . Intended to be "the poor man's airplane", it featured an innovative molded plywood monocoque fuselage for which the Lougheads, Northrop and Tony Stadlman received

1860-499: The DC-10 ) strongly opposed the bill and they feared the government would steer contracts to Lockheed to insure loan payments. Admiral Hyman G. Rickover condemned the bill saying it represented "a new philosophy where we privatize profits and socialize losses." The New York Times editorial board held that the Nixon administration was violating its own free enterprise principles by advocating for

1953-551: The Detroit Aircraft Corporation , a holding company with assets of $ 28 million, began acquiring a portfolio of aviation companies. In July 1929, Fred E. Keeler, an investor who owned 51 percent of Lockheed, decided to sell the company assets to Detroit Aircraft Company. The acquisition was through an exchange of stock. Unhappy with this situation, Allan Loughead resigned as president and general manager on June 3, 1929, and later sold his Detroit Aircraft stock for $ 23

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2046-504: The Golden Eagle from his San Francisco hotel window during a test flight. He was so impressed that he went to the Oakland airport to learn more about it. Then he drove to Hollywood and met with Loughead, Northrop, and others and pored over its drawings. He placed an order for the third Vega equipped for Arctic exploration. After flight tests in January 1928, by Eddie Bellande , he said, "She's

2139-630: The Hawaiian Pineapple Company , offered a prize of $ 25,000 ($ 372,000 in 2020) to the first person to fly from North America to Hawaii after August 12, 1927. As a result, George Hearst , publisher of the San Francisco Examiner , bought a Vega for $ 12,500 and entered it in the Dole Air Race under the name Golden Eagle . Later Loughead said, "The sales price represented a loss, but we were happy to absorb it. The prestige of selling

2232-523: The Imperial Japanese Army . At the beginning of World War II, Lockheed – under the guidance of Clarence (Kelly) Johnson , who is considered one of the best-known American aircraft designers – answered a specification for an interceptor by submitting the P-38 Lightning fighter aircraft, a twin-engined, twin-boom design. The P-38 was the only American fighter aircraft in production throughout

2325-549: The L-049 Constellation , a radical new airliner capable of flying 43 passengers between New York and London at a speed of 300 mph (480 km/h) in 13 hours. Once the Constellation (nicknamed Connie ) went into production, the military received the first production models; after the war, the airlines received their original orders, giving Lockheed more than a year's head-start over other aircraft manufacturers in what

2418-721: The Lockheed Aircraft Company ( spelled phonetically to prevent mispronunciation) in Hollywood. This new company used some of the same technology originally developed for the Model S-1 to design the Vega Model . In March 1928, the company relocated to Burbank, California , and by year's end reported sales exceeding one million dollars. From 1926 to 1928 the company produced over 80 aircraft and employed more than 300 workers who by April 1929 were building five aircraft per week. In July 1929, majority shareholder Fred Keeler sold 87% of

2511-528: The "Lockheed Loan". Even after its adoption, a further controversy developed when the Emergency Loan Guarantee Board set up by the Executive branch to oversee the loan refused to allow Congress' General Accounting Office to examine its records. They argued that the office was attempting "interference in the decision-making process" amounting to an effort to "bully" and "harass" the board. This claim

2604-593: The 1970s. Drowning in debt, in 1971 Lockheed (then the largest US defense contractor) asked the US government for a loan guarantee, to avoid insolvency. Lockheed argued that a government bailout was necessary due to the company's value for U.S. national security. On May 13, 1971, the Richard Nixon administration sent a bill titled "The Emergency Loan Guarantee Act" to Congress requesting a $ 250 million loan guarantee for Lockheed and its L-1011 Tristar airbus program. The measure

2697-405: The 1970s. In late 1975 and early 1976, a subcommittee of the U.S. Senate led by Senator Frank Church concluded that members of the Lockheed board had paid members of friendly governments to guarantee contracts for military aircraft. In 1976, it was publicly revealed that Lockheed had paid $ 22 million in bribes to foreign officials in the process of negotiating the sale of aircraft including

2790-573: The Alco Cab Company to invest $ 4,000 in the plane. Finally, after 18 months, their Model G was christened the ALCO NO. 1 in 1913, and Allan Loughead made a successful flight in it from the waters of the Golden Gate entrance to San Francisco Bay. That first flight was on June 15, 1913. The flight reached an altitude of 300 feet and a speed of 60 miles per hour. Allan then returned to take Malcolm for

2883-512: The Arctic and Antarctic brought Lockheed Aircraft a flood of orders, which required a move to new facilities in Burbank, California , in March 1928. Lockheed received an order for 20 Vegas worth $ 250,000 ($ 3.77 million in 2020), the largest commercial aircraft order to date. The nation's fledgling airlines soon recognized the potential of the Vega as an airmail and passenger plane. Also, Northrop designed

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2976-630: The Breese Aloha landed, and Martin Jensen and Paul Schluter claimed the $ 10,000 second prize. It became apparent that the Golden Eagle and Miss Doran were down in the Pacific. Despite an extensive air and sea search, no trace of either plane was found. Gloom fell over the Lockheed factory, even though a factory demonstrator Vega was underway. Arctic explorer Captain George Hubert Wilkins had seen

3069-535: The Constellation obsolete. However, the design proved underpowered. The company sought to purchase Convair in 1946, but the sale was blocked by the SEC . In 1943, Lockheed began, in secrecy, development of a new jet fighter at its Burbank facility. This fighter, the Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star , became the first American jet fighter to score a kill. It also recorded the first jet-to-jet aerial kill, downing

3162-423: The F-1. When the United States entered World War I in 1917, Allan Loughead went to Washington, D.C. to get a Navy contract to build the F-1 in quantity. The Navy informed Loughead that it would purchase only previously approved designs. Later, Loughead said of this visit, "Down there I lost all the patriotism I ever had." He did return with a contract to build two Curtiss flying boats and an agreement for

3255-758: The F-104 Starfighter, the so-called Deal of the Century. The scandal caused considerable political controversy in West Germany , the Netherlands , Italy, and Japan. In the US, the scandal led to passage of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act , and nearly led to the ailing corporation's downfall (it was already struggling due to the poor sales of the L-1011 airliner). Haughton resigned his post as chairman. In

3348-744: The Golden Gate for Honolulu . It was followed by the Buhl Miss Doran , the Breese Aloha , the Travel Air Woolaroc , and the Swallow Dallas Spirit . The Miss Doran , Oklahoma and Dallas Spirit soon returned with difficulties. Only the Miss Doran was able to become airborne again, and by 2 p.m., Loughead knew the Lockheed Vega was the fastest plane in the race. None of

3441-601: The Lockheed Aircraft Company to Detroit Aircraft Corporation . In August 1929, Allan Loughead resigned. The Great Depression ruined the aircraft market, and Detroit Aircraft went bankrupt. A group of investors headed by brothers Robert and Courtland Gross, and Walter Varney , bought the company out of receivership in 1932. The syndicate bought the company for a mere $ 40,000 ($ 858,000 in 2023). Ironically, Allan Loughead himself had planned to bid for his own company, but had raised only $ 50,000 ($ 824,000), which he felt

3534-490: The Lockheed Hydraulic Brake Company in 1919 to promote a revolutionary four-wheel hydraulic brake system that he had invented. Tired of his name being mispronounced "Log-head", Malcolm changed the spelling to match its pronunciation. Walter Chrysler introduced the Lockheed brake system on the first Chrysler car in 1924. Malcolm sold his business to Bendix in 1932. From 1920 to 1922, Allan Loughead

3627-457: The Navy in early 1919, it then converted the damaged F-lA landplane back into the F-1 flying boat for its sightseeing flight operations. Among their most notable passengers were King Albert and Queen Elisabeth of Belgium, whom the Lougheads flew at the request of the US government. Albert and Elisabeth were so impressed with their flight to Santa Cruz Island that they presented Allan and Malcolm with

3720-551: The Navy to test the F-1. When the F-1 was completed, Allan Loughead and a crew of three flew it from Santa Barbara to San Diego in April 1918, setting a record of 181 minutes for the 211-mile flight. After the Navy completed its tests, the F-1 was returned to Loughead Aircraft and was then converted into the F-lA land-plane. Loughead hoped to interest the Army in it as a long-range bomber or transport plane. The war ended before its conversion

3813-731: The Poseidon and Trident nuclear missiles. Lockheed developed the F-104 Starfighter in the late 1950s, the world's first Mach 2 fighter jet. In the early 1960s, the company introduced the C-141 Starlifter four-engine jet transport. During the 1960s, Lockheed began development for two large aircraft: the C-5 Galaxy military transport and the L-1011 TriStar wide-body civil airliner. Both projects encountered delays and cost overruns. The C-5

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3906-487: The Transfer Orbit Stage (under subcontract to Orbital Sciences Corporation ) and various satellite models. Lockheed's operations were divided between several groups and divisions, many of which continue to operate within Lockheed A partial listing of aircraft and other vehicles produced by Lockheed. Allan Loughead Allan Haines Lockheed ( né Allan Haines Loughead ; January 20, 1889 – May 26, 1969)

3999-676: The U-2 (late 1950s), SR-71 Blackbird (1962) and F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter (1978). The Skunk Works often created high-quality designs in a short time and sometimes with limited resources. In 1954, the Lockheed C-130 Hercules , a durable four-engined transport, flew for the first time. This type remains in production today. In 1956, Lockheed received a contract for the development of the Polaris Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile ( SLBM ); it would be followed by

4092-459: The Vega to Hearst was tremendous." Hearst also ordered a Vega seaplane for a flight to Australia. All the Lockheed personnel were present when the first Vega was trucked to a hayfield near Inglewood, California . Test pilot Eddie Bellande took it up on its first flight. Upon landing, he yelled, "Boys, she's a dandy, a real joy to fly!" World War I flyer Jack Frost was chosen to pilot the Golden Eagle with Gordon Scott as his navigator. The plane

4185-497: The cheapest, and I'm not going to have long white whiskers when that happens. The airplane will take over both land and water travel. Flying has no barriers." Allan and Malcolm Loughead installed a 2-cylinder, 12 hp motor on the Montgomery glider with Victor as engineer. Allan Loughead's first flight was in Chicago in 1910 when he climbed aboard a home-made aircraft and operated its ailerons while its builder, George Gates, operated

4278-656: The company should be allowed to go into bankruptcy citing the recent decision to leave Penn Central railroad to that fate, and the fact that the airbus program at issue was commercial rather than military. Naval scholar Thomas Paul Stanton notes that the opposition to the bill held it was "the beginning of the socialization of the American aircraft and aerospace industry." Proponents responded by claiming "this socializing process had taken place many years before", and some witnesses before Congress discounted "the very notion of 'free enterprise'." Treasury Secretary Connally pointed to

4371-499: The company was producing five planes per week with less than 300 employees. The retail sales price of these planes averaged about $ 17,000 each. In mid-1928, Jack Northrop left Lockheed Aircraft to start his own company. Gerald Vultee (later to found Vultee Aircraft ) became the Lockheed chief engineer. Part of the reason Northrop left was that Lockheed's management refused to invest in developing new metal aircraft and chose to maximize revenue from its proven wood designs. Meanwhile,

4464-503: The entirety of American involvement in the war, from Pearl Harbor to Victory over Japan Day . It filled ground-attack, air-to-air, and even tactical bombing roles in all theaters of the war in which the United States operated. The P-38 was responsible for shooting down more Japanese aircraft than any other U.S. Army Air Forces type during the war; it is particularly famous for being the aircraft type that shot down Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto 's airplane. The Lockheed Vega factory

4557-455: The faltering economy and worries about unemployment while testifying "the time has come within the United States when we have to look at things differently. Free enterprise is just not all that free." Questions arose whether letting Lockheed fail would be bad for the market due to decreased competition or good by screening out inefficient competitors and mismanagement. Lockheed's competitors, McDonnell Douglas and General Electric (collaborators on

4650-586: The famous phrase, "It Takes a Lockheed to Beat a Lockheed." In 1928 the company sales exceeded one million dollars. The Lockheed Vega remained the primary product of the Lockheed Corporation. The Vega was a high-wing, cantilever monoplane manufactured using the two-piece moulded-under-pressure streamlined plywood fuselage skin construction developed in Santa Barbara. The plane was manufactured in four-passenger and six-passenger variants. By April 1929,

4743-641: The ground within sight of their goal. Wilkin's flight across the Arctic was hailed as one of the greatest in aviation. Wilkins was knighted by King George V of the United Kingdom , while Eielson received the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Harmon Trophy from President Herbert Hoover . Before he returned to the US, Wilkins began planning an expedition to Antarctica and ordered a low-wing Lockheed Explorer seaplane. He soon changed his order to

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4836-401: The late 1980s, leveraged buyout specialist Harold Simmons conducted a widely publicized but unsuccessful takeover attempt on the Lockheed Corporation, having gradually acquired almost 20 percent of its stock. Lockheed was attractive to Simmons because one of its primary investors was the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), the pension fund of the state of California. At

4929-407: The loan. (Later, historian Stephen J. Whitfield viewed the passage of the loan guarantee as a support for the argument that America was shifting away from Lockean liberalism. ) Following a fierce debate, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew cast a tie-breaking vote in favor of the measure on August 2, 1971. President Nixon signed the bill into law on August 9, 1971 - which became colloquially known as

5022-425: The parasol wing Air Express for Western Air Express as an airmail and a passenger plane. The Vega, Explorer and Air Express, and the variants that stemmed from them, were used by the biggest names in aviation, Art Goebel, Bob Cantwell, Frank Hawks , Amelia Earhart , Wiley Post , Roscoe Turner , Jimmy Doolittle , and others, to set a number of distance, speed and endurance records. This led Allan Loughead to coin

5115-492: The pilot said it was the most flyable plane he had ever flown. The plane made hundreds of flights and proved to be a successful design. At an aircraft show in San Francisco, thousands admired the S-1, but no one ordered the $ 2,500 plane. Allan Loughead realized that the government's sale of war surplus aircraft for as little as $ 300 had killed the market for new aircraft. As a result, Loughead Aircraft closed in 1920 and its assets were liquidated in 1921. Malcolm Loughead formed

5208-426: The plane to take aerial footage. In 1916, the brothers founded Loughead Aircraft Manufacturing Company in Santa Barbara to build a 10-place, twin-engined F-1 flying boat for their aerial sightseeing business. They began construction in a rented garage, which attracted the attention of 20-year-old John K. "Jack" Northrop . Northrop was skilled in drafting and mathematics, and the Lougheads employed him in designing

5301-537: The plane. He told the Lougheads if they wanted it back, they would have to repay his $ 4,000. Consequently, in the hopes of striking it rich, the Loughead brothers spent two unsuccessful years prospecting in California's gold country. With the financial aid of Alaskan pioneer Paul Meyer, Allan and Malcolm Loughead bought the Model G back in 1915 and opened a flying concession at the Panama–Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. In five months, they took 600 paying passengers aloft and netted $ 4,000. Henry Ford

5394-418: The planes carried radio transmitters - all Loughead could do was to await news from Hawaii. The airplanes were supposed to arrive about 1 p.m. the next day. The next morning, Jim Dole and the race committee gathered on Wheeler Field at Honolulu. The Travel Air Woolaroc landed after 26 hours and 16 minutes aloft, and Art Goebel and Bill Davis crawled out to claim the $ 25,000 first prize. Two hours later,

5487-428: The project. As a result, using $ 22,500 from Keeler and $ 2,500 from Loughead, the four formed the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation in December 1926, with Keeler as president, Loughead as vice president and general manager, Northrop as chief engineer and Stadlman as factory superintendent. They used the "Lockheed" spelling to associate themselves with Malcolm's successful brake company. The company established operations in

5580-410: The ramifications of the Lockheed loan guarantee soon resurfaced in late 1975 with discussions on possible aid to New York City during its fiscal crisis . Lockheed finished paying off the $ 1.4 billion loan in 1977, along with about $ 112.22 million in loan guarantee fees. The Lockheed bribery scandals were a series of illegal bribes and contributions made by Lockheed officials from the late 1950s to

5673-427: The rudder and elevators. When two of Plew's trained pilots could not get the Curtiss airborne, Allan said: "I've got a $ 20 gold piece that says I'll make it fly, and I'm offering three-to-one odds! Any takers?" There being none, he got the airplane airborne on his second try. Later he said of this flight, "It was partly nerve, partly confidence and partly damn foolishness. But now I was an aviator!" The Curtiss pusher

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5766-497: The satellite failing to reach orbit and falling into the atmosphere over the South Pacific Ocean. IKONOS-2 was built in parallel with and as a nearly identical twin to IKONOS-1. Whereas IKONOS-1 was built with Ring Laser Gyros (RLGs) for attitude rate sensors, IKONOS-2 fortuitously was built with Hemispherical Resonator Gyros (HRGs). RLGs were found to be incompatible with long-duration space missions, whereas HRGs could last 10 or more years in space. Completion of IKONOS-2 construction

5859-493: The satellite in the eight-gigahertz Earth exploration-satellite services band. Prior to launch, Space Imaging changed the name of the satellite system to IKONOS. The name comes from the Greek word eikōn , for "image". Two satellites were originally planned for operation. IKONOS-1 was launched on 27 April 1999 at 18:22  UTC from Vandenberg AFB Space Launch Complex 6 , but Athena II rocket's payload fairing did not separate due to an electrical malfunction, resulting in

5952-482: The tail surfaces, the landing gear and mounting the engine. When completed, the company had invested nearly $ 17,500 in the plane, which was named the Vega . The result was a successful high-speed monoplane with a range of 1,000 miles, a cruising speed of 185 miles per hour, and capacity of six people. The timing of the Vega was propitious. In 1927, Charles Lindbergh 's flight from New York to Paris renewed interest in aviation. Soon after, James D. Dole , president of

6045-406: The takeover since he was also at the time pursuing control of Georgia Gulf . Merger talks between Lockheed and Martin Marietta began in March 1994, with the companies announcing their $ 10 billion planned merger on August 30, 1994. The headquarters for the combined companies would be at Martin Marietta headquarters in North Bethesda, Maryland . The deal was finalized on March 15, 1995, when

6138-402: The time, the New York Times said, "Much of Mr. Simmons's interest in Lockheed is believed to stem from its pension plan, which is over funded by more than $ 1.4 billion. Analysts said he might want to liquidate the plan and pay out the excess funds to shareholders, including himself." Citing the mismanagement by its chairman, Daniel M. Tellep , Simmons stated a wish to replace its board with

6231-431: The two companies' shareholders approved the merger. The segments of the two companies not retained by the new company formed the basis for L-3 Communications , a mid-size defense contractor in its own right. Lockheed Martin also later spun off the materials company Martin Marietta Materials . The company's executives received large bonuses directly from the government as a result of the merger. Norman R. Augustine who

6324-457: The venture, Loughead laughed and said, "No, we went broke, which was not a new experience!" In 1922, Allan Loughead became a real estate salesman in the Hollywood area. He wrote in 1942 that the real estate business was "not particulary [ sic ] interesting, but from a financial standpoint [it was] very successful." Whenever possible, Loughead and Jack Northrop would get together and discuss ideas about new aircraft. By now Northrop

6417-459: The wing. Northrop wanted to use a self-supporting cantilever design that eliminated wing struts. Loughead believed the public wouldn't want to fly in a plane without visible wing supports. In the end, Northrop won. Loughead and Northrop set out to form an aircraft company. Loughead's accountant friend, Kenneth Jay, introduced them to Fred S. Keeler, a successful brick and ceramics manufacturer. After reviewing their proposal, he agreed to help finance

6510-473: The world in 1937. Subsequent designs, the Lockheed Model 12 Electra Junior and the Lockheed Model 14 Super Electra expanded their market. The Lockheed Model 14 formed the basis for the Hudson bomber, which was supplied to both the British Royal Air Force and the United States military before and during World War II . Its primary role was submarine hunting. The Model 14 Super Electra were sold abroad, and more than 100 were license-built in Japan for use by

6603-474: Was a well-known novelist and journalist. After separating from her husband, Flora took the children to Santa Barbara, California , where the brothers experimented with kites. Later, Flora moved them to a fruit ranch near Alma, California , where the brothers became interested in the gliding experiments of Professor John J. Montgomery . The Loughead brothers attended elementary school only, but were mechanically inclined from an early age. Victor Loughead, who

6696-463: Was an American aerospace manufacturer . Lockheed was founded in 1926 and merged in 1995 with Martin Marietta to form Lockheed Martin . Its founder, Allan Lockheed , had earlier founded the similarly named but otherwise-unrelated Loughead Aircraft Manufacturing Company , which was operational from 1912 to 1920. Allan Loughead and his brother Malcolm Loughead had operated an earlier aircraft company, Loughead Aircraft Manufacturing Company , which

6789-543: Was an American aviation engineer and businessman. He formed the Alco Hydro-Aeroplane Company along with his brother, Malcolm Loughead , which became Lockheed Corporation . Loughead legally changed his name in 1934 to Allan Lockheed, the phonetic spelling of his family name, to avoid spelling confusion. He went on to form two other aircraft manufacturing companies in the 1930s, both of which were unsuccessful. After World War II , he continued his career as

6882-469: Was an engineer with the Douglas Aircraft Company . In 1926, Allan Loughead and Jack Northrop decided to build a high-speed monoplane with a capacity of four passengers and a pilot in a streamlined fuselage using their patented monocoque construction. Northrop created drawings of the plane at home. The plane was to be powered by the new Wright Whirlwind engine. The only disagreement arose over

6975-451: Was announced in September 2005 and finalized in January 2006. The merged company was renamed GeoEye , which was itself acquired by DigitalGlobe in January 2013. DigitalGlobe operated IKONOS until its retirement on 31 March 2015. During its lifetime, IKONOS produced 597,802 public images, covering more than 400 million km (154 million sq mi) of area. IKONOS was

7068-686: Was at the time CEO of Martin Marietta received an $ 8.2 million bonus. Both companies contributed important products to the new portfolio. Lockheed products included the Trident missile , P-3 Orion maritime patrol aircraft , U-2 and SR-71 reconnaissance airplanes , F-117 Nighthawk , F-16 Fighting Falcon , F-22 Raptor , C-130 Hercules , A-4AR Fightinghawk and the DSCS-3 satellite. Martin Marietta products included Titan rockets , Sandia National Laboratories (management contract acquired in 1993), Space Shuttle External Tank , Viking 1 and Viking 2 landers,

7161-585: Was built in any number (141 aircraft) was the Vega first built in 1927, best known for its several first- and record-setting flights by, among others, Amelia Earhart , Wiley Post , and George Hubert Wilkins . In the 1930s, Lockheed spent $ 139,400 ($ 2.29 million) to develop the Model 10 Electra , a small twin-engined transport. The company sold 40 in the first year of production. Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan , flew it in their failed attempt to circumnavigate

7254-693: Was built to vague initial requirements and suffered from structural weaknesses, which Lockheed was forced to correct at its own expense. The TriStar competed for the same market as the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 ; delays in Rolls-Royce engine development caused the TriStar to fall behind the DC-10. The C-5 and L-1011 projects, the canceled U.S. Army AH-56 Cheyenne helicopter program, and embroiled shipbuilding contracts caused Lockheed to lose large sums of money during

7347-529: Was completed. The Lougheads attempted to demonstrate the long-range potential of the F-lA by making the first flight from Santa Barbara to Washington, D.C. Their crew included pilot Orvar Meyerhoffer, co-pilot Aaron R. Ferneau, and mechanic Leo G. Flint. They departed Santa Barbara on November 23. En route they encountered severe weather, which cleared when they crossed the Colorado River at Yuma, Arizona. Near Tacna, Arizona, an engine failed and Meyerhoffer made

7440-433: Was denied by Comptroller General Elmer B. Staats , and efforts were made by Senator William Proxmire to get Treasury Secretary John Connally to testify due to the suspicion that the loan guarantee was in jeopardy. The editorial board of The New York Times blasted the situation, citing it as another argument against the propriety of the loan guarantee and the precedent it set for other failing companies. The debate around

7533-400: Was easily foreseen as the post-war modernization of civilian air travel. The Constellation's performance set new standards which transformed the civilian transportation market. Its signature tri-tail was the result of many initial customers not having hangars tall enough for a conventional tail. Lockheed produced a larger transport, the double-decked R6V Constitution , which was intended to make

7626-413: Was entangled in telephone wires. At that point, he decided to build a better aircraft so he could collect all of the gate receipts. Loughead returned to San Francisco in 1912 and went to work as an auto mechanic. There, he and his brother Malcolm spent their spare time building a three-place seaplane to operate from San Francisco Bay. They constantly ran out of money until they convinced Max Mamlock of

7719-508: Was hotly debated in the US Senate. The chief antagonist was Senator William Proxmire (D-Wis), the nemesis of Lockheed and its chairman, Daniel J. Haughton. Some of the debate in Congress developed over what conditions should be attached to the bailout. Senator Alan Cranston demanded that the management be forced to step down, lest it set a precedent rewarding wasteful spending. Others argued that

7812-589: Was interested in automobiles and airplanes, moved to Chicago , where he became associated with James E. Plew , an automobile dealer. There, in 1909, Victor wrote a book, Vehicles of the Air , which became a popular treatise on aircraft design and aviation history. In 1904, Malcolm became a mechanic with the White Steam Car Company in San Francisco . Allan Loughead went to San Francisco in 1906 where he became

7905-538: Was located next to Burbank's Union Airport which it had purchased in 1940. During the war, the entire area was camouflaged in case of enemy reconnaissance. The factory was hidden beneath a huge burlap tarpaulin painted to depict a peaceful semi-rural neighborhood, replete with rubber automobiles. Hundreds of fake trees, shrubs, buildings, and even fire hydrants were positioned to give a three-dimensional appearance. The trees and shrubs were created from chicken wire treated with an adhesive and covered with feathers to provide

7998-470: Was one person who turned down a ride, saying, "I would not take even a straightaway flight four feet above the bay in anybody's aeroplane for all the money in California." In early 1916, the Loughead brothers moved the operation to Santa Barbara, where they were swamped by people wanting to make their first flight. In addition, they made charter flights to the off-shore islands, and local movie companies used

8091-583: Was operational from 1912 to 1920. The company built and operated aircraft for paying passengers on sightseeing tours in California and had developed a prototype for the civil market, but folded in 1920 due to the flood of surplus aircraft deflating the market after World War I . Allan went into the real estate market while Malcolm had meanwhile formed a successful company marketing brake systems for automobiles. On December 13, 1926, Allan Loughead, John Northrop , Kenneth Kay and Fred Keeler secured funding to form

8184-564: Was powered by a 30 hp engine. When Plew withdrew from aviation after two of his planes were wrecked and a student killed, Loughead became a flight instructor with the International Aeroplane Manufacturing Company in Chicago, and put on aerial exhibitions for 25% of the gate receipts. Later he said: "I was really rich the first week out. I made something like $ 850." During an exhibition at Hoopeston, Illinois , his rain-soaked airplane failed to climb enough and

8277-584: Was projected for July 1999 with a January 2000 launch. In reaction to the loss of IKONOS-1, the spacecraft was renamed IKONOS and its processing accelerated, resulting in a launch on 24 September 1999 at 18:22 UTC, also from Vandenberg aboard an Athena II rocket. The company began selling IKONOS imagery on the market on 1 January 2000. In December 2000, IKONOS received the "Best of What's New" Grant Award in Aviation & Space from Popular Science magazine. The acquisition of Space Imaging and its assets by Orbimage

8370-551: Was provided with many safety features and equipped for 30 days of survival at sea. At noon on August 16, the starter's flag dropped at Oakland's unfinished airport and the Travel Air Oklahoma departed first. Minutes later, the privately built El Encanto groundlooped off the runway. Then the Breese Pabco Pacific Flyer failed to get airborne. At 12:30 p.m. the Golden Eagle lifted off and headed out over

8463-467: Was seven years. IKONOS operated in a Sun-synchronous , near-polar, circular orbit at approximately 680 km (423 mi). IKONOS 's primary instrument was the Optical Sensor Assembly (OSA), designed and built by Kodak . It had a primary mirror aperture of 70 cm (28 in), and a folded optical focal length of 10 m (394 in) using 5 mirrors. The main mirror featured

8556-484: Was the Los Angeles sales manager for Lockheed brakes. In the summer of 1922, Allan Loughead operated a ride concession at Catalina Island . Called "The Thrill of Avalon", it consisted of a touring car body mounted on two seaplane floats and powered by an aircraft engine driving a pusher propeller. The skimmer proved to be too rough and noisy to be popular and lasted only a year. Later, when asked if he made any profit on

8649-444: Was too small a sum for a serious bid. In 1934, Robert E. Gross was named chairman of the new company, the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, which was headquartered at what is now the airport in Burbank, California . His brother Courtlandt S. Gross was a co-founder and executive, succeeding Robert as chairman following his death in 1961. The company was named the Lockheed Corporation in 1977. The first successful construction that

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