Lockheed Sirius Airplane Model Desk Display Northrop Antique Deco Brass Pan Am
Item History & Price
| Reference Number: Avaluer:48364 |
This auction is for a 1930s art decovintage metal airplane desk model made of nickel plated brass featuring a metalspinning propeller, two open cockpits with metal windscreens, crisply incisedwing flaps and fixed landing gear mounted to an oak planet sphere withsaturn-like ring on an oak base with a matching metal key or coin dish. Theairplane looks similar to a lockheed sirius of the type that charles and annemorrow lindbergh flew around the world. Size: 7 inches airplane wingspan. 11... x 6 inches base.The Lockheed Model 8 Sirius was a single-engined, propeller-driven monoplane designed and built by Jack Northrop and Gerard Vultee while they were engineers at Lockheed in 1929, at therequest of Charles Lindbergh. Twoversions of the same basic design were built for the United States Air Force, one made largely of wood with a fixed landing gear, and one with a metal skinand retractable landing gear, designated Y1C-25 and Y1C-23, respectively. Its basic role was intended to be as autility transport.[1] A total of 15 Sirius aircraftwere constructed in 1929 and 1930.[2] The first and best knownSirius was bought by Lindbergh, and in 1931, as NR-211, it was retrofitted tobe a float plane.[3] Lindbergh and his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh flew itto the Far East, where she wrote a book about their experiences thereentitled North to the Orient.[3] The aircraft was damaged in Hankou, China, when it accidentally capsized whilebeing lowered off the aircraft carrier HMS Hermes, and had to be sent back to Lockheed to be repaired.[4] In 1931, György Endresz andSándor Magyar made a successful US–Hungary transatlantic flight with a LockheedSirius 8A aircraft named "Justice for Hungary".[5] In 1933, the Lindberghs setout again with their Sirius, now upgraded with a more powerful engine, a newdirectional gyro, and an artificial horizon. Thistime, their route would take them across the northern Atlantic, with no particular destination, but primarily toscout for potential new airline routes for Pan Am.[6] While at a refueling stop in Angmagssalik, Greenland, the Inuitof the area gave the Sirius a nickname, "Tingmissartoq" or "one who flies like a bird".They continued on their flight and made many stops in Europe, Russia, then south to Africa, back across the southern Atlantic to Brazil and back over the skies of New York City at the end of 1933, after 30, 000 miles and 21countries; droves of people turned out to greet them as they landed.[3]
