The Vega was a six-passenger monoplane built by the Lockheed company starting in 1927. It became famous for its use by a number of record breaking pilots who were attracted to the rugged and very long-ranged design. Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly the Atlantic single handed in one.
Designed by John Knudsen Northrop and Gerrard Vultee, both of whom would later form their own companies, the plane was originally intended to serve with Lockheed's own airline routes. They set out to build a four-seat aircraft that was not only rugged, but the fastest aircraft as well. Utilizing the latest designs in monocoque fuselages, cantilever wings and the best engine available, the Vega delivered on the promise of speed.
The fuselage was monocoque, built from sheets of plywood, skinned over wooden ribs. Using a large concrete mold, a single half of the fuselage shell was laminated in sections with glue and then a rubber bladder was lowered into the mold and inflated with air to compress the lamination into shape. Two fuselage halves were then nailed and glued over a previously made rib framework. With the fuselage constructed in this fashion, the wing spar had to be kept clear, so they decided to make a single spar cantilever mounted on the very top of the aircraft. The only part of the aircraft that wasn't particularly streamlined was the landing gear although production versions wore sleek "spats". For power they chose the Wright Whirlwind, which delivered 225 horsepower (168 kW).
The first Vega 1, named the Golden Eagle, flew from Lockheed's Los Angeles plant on July 4, 1927. It could cruise at a then-fast 120 mph (193 km/h), and had a top speed of 135 mph (217 km/h). However. the four-passenger (plus one pilot) load was considered too small for airline use. A number of private owners placed orders for the design however, and by the end of 1928, they had produced 68 of this original design. In the 1928 National Air Races in Cleveland, Vegas won every speed award.
Looking to improve the design, Lockheed delivered the Vega 5 in 1929. Adding the Pratt & Whitney R-1340 Wasp engine of 450 hp (336 kW) improved weights enough to allow two more seats to be added. A new NACA cowling increased cruise speed to 155 mph (249 km/h) and top speed to 165 mph (266 km/h). However, even the new six-seat configuration proved to be too small, and the 5 was purchased primarily for private aviation and executive transport. A total of 64 Vega 5s were built. In 1931, the US Air Corps bought two Vega 5s; one designated C-12 and one as the C-17. The C-17 differed by having an extra set of fuel tanks in the wings.
Amelia Earhart's Vega is a part of the collection of the National Air and Space Museum. Earhart's Transatlantic Vega is on display at the original National Air and Space Museum building in Washington, D.C.
(Source: Wikipedia on line)
General characteristics
Crew: 1
Passenger: 7
Length: 27 ft 6 in (8.38 m)
Wingspan: 41 ft in (12.49 m)
Height: 8 ft 6 in (2.59 m)
Wing area: 259 sq ft (25.548 m2)
Empty weight: 2,565 lb (1,163 kg)
Loaded weight: 4,500 lb (2,041 kg)
Powerplant: 1× Pratt & Whitney Wasp R1340C, 500 hp (372.5 kW)
Performance
Maximum speed: 185 mph (298 km/h)
Cruise speed: 165 mph (265 km/h)
Range: 725 mi (1,165 km)
Service ceiling: 15,000 ft (4,570 m)
Rate of climb: 1,300 ft/min (6.6 m/s)
Original FS5 model creator: Scott A. Dommin 1996
Reworked to CFS with moving parts, dp, and metalized colors: Edmundo Abad 2010.
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I have included new textures, moving parts and damage profile for use with CFS1, without Armament.
Special thanks to Christian Maas for his excellent tool Hex-editor XVI32 and Chuck Dome by his MDL file viewer. Without their tools, I might not have been able to assign new textures to the original model.
Also special thanks to my son Fernando for to find a better way of capturing screenshoots.
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Installation CFS
1. Unzip to Temporaly directory "vega_ae.zip".
2. Copy "vega_ae" folder to X:\CFS\aircraft directory.
3. Copy "gauges" folder to X:\CFS\gauges directory.
