FS2004 Lockheed Altair "Lady Southern Cross"
I usually don't do requests, but, Eric Davis from Australia thought the Lockheed Altair was my kind of project. I looked at it and agreed. The "Lady Soutern Cross" was bought and outfitted specifically for the 1935 London to Melbourne race. Unfortunately, it was lost over half way into the race. The story of this plane is still a subject for conjecture. Eric has been kind enough to write the following regarding its last flight.
THE LAST FLIGHT
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On 06 November 1935, the Lockheed Altair "Lady Southern Cross" took off from Hamble airport, London, bound for Australia.
Piloted by Charles Kingsford Smith and Tommy Pethybridge it was wearing British Registration numbers G-ADUS. Smith had obtained a British Cof A for the aircraft which limited the amount of fuel he could carry to 628 litres (145 imp. gallons ** see notes). Smith had always had trouble getting a C of A for the Altair as he had shipped it to Australia after buying it from Lockheed, without obtaining an American C of A. As flown from Brisbane to Oakland across the Pacific in October 1934, it had carried 1900 litres (418 imp. gallons).
They reached Greece within eight hours - refuelled and headed for Baghdad, then on to Allahabad, India. Reaching here they had covered nearly half the distance, 8,000 kms (5,000 miles) in 30.5 hours. This was four hours more than Scott and Black had taken in their Comet, but Smith knew that that they had been slower on the next section, and thought he could still make up the time.
At 5.58 p.m local time they left Allahabad airport on 07 November for Singapore via Bangkok. At 1.30 a.m the Altair was heard at Rangoon airport in Burma, heading south-east in the direction of Singapore. It failed to arrive.
Jimmy Melrose from Adelaide was in a Percival Gull attacking Smithy's England-Australia solo flight record. He reported that the Lady Southern Cross had flown over him at about 3.00 a.m local time, travelling at twice his speed. He was at that time about 240 kms (150 miles) south-east of Rangoon. He expected to find Smith refuelling at Bangkok when he arrived, and on learning the Altair had not arrived, he reported it missing. An extensive air, sea and land search proved fruitless.
01 May 1937 an aircraft wheel with some of the struts attached was found on the south shore of Aye Island, about 1.5 miles west of the mainland of Burma. This was later confirmed by Lockheed as being from Smith's Altair.
Reference: Charles Kingsford Smith by Pedr Davis. ISBN 0 947079 04 1 First published 1977 by Summit Books.
Sir Lawrence Wackett (who designed the long range fuel tanks for the Altair), and went on to head the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation of Australia, believed the Altair had suffered an engine failure. The Altair was using a P&W Wasp 'E' model engine which was one of the experimental engines being used to develop the Wasp series, and it had a 12:1 supercharger impeller. Some years later Wackett found that Pratt &Whitney had reached the 'H' model, and one of the changes was the supercharger impeller speed had been reduced to 8:1. CAC made thousands of Wasp 'H' model engines and Wackett was informed that even at the reduced speed the superchager bearing was a critical item.
Pedr Davis contacted Smithy's engineer and was told that due to the low hours on the engine, the supercharger had not been overhauled since leaving the factory. It was also not known to be a problem at that time.
Pedr Davis believes the Altair suffered engine failure, glided down from 15,000 feet and the wheels were lowered hoping to make a beach landing. Aye Island rises to a height of 122 metres (406 feet), and damage was found to the tops of trees leading to the waters edge. This suggests that the Altair struck them and finished over a cliff in water about 100 feet deep, upside down, where the water movement eventually caused the wheel and leg to break off. This would explain why it took so long to wash ashore.
Note: 628 litres is equal to 138 Imperial gallons or 166 US gallons, not 145 imperial gallons as per the book.
To learn much more:- Please visit www.adastron.com, and read "The Lockheed Files". They have a huge amount of information on the Altair - "Lady Southern Cross", together with excellent photographs supplied by Tim Kalina.
Tim Kalina was extremely helpful in supplying photographs and photocopies, which I was able to pass on to Paul Clawson.
Eric W.Davis
15 November 2004
INSTALLATION: Unzip Altair.zip into a temporary folder. Copy the file Lockheed Altair into the Aircraft folder of FS2004. This plane will show in the Aircraft Selection list under Lockheed as Altair.
PANEL: The 2D panel is based loosely on a photo of a Lockheed Orion panel. (The original Orion, the one with a round engine; not the PV-3). All of the gauges are default from FS2004. Caution: you must copy the .cab gauges from the panel files of the Lockheed Vega, Dehavilland Comet, and the Ford Trimotor into the Gauges folder of FS2004 or they won't show. This project does not have a VC as Mr. Davis requested it without.
LEGAL: This project is released as freeware. You may modify it, repaint it, etc., upload to another website as long as it is not for profit. You need my written permission to use any of these files for commercial purposes; otherwise just give me credit for the original design. This airplane should not hurt your computer but I am not responsible if it causes problems.
