The Lockheed Model 9 Orion is a single-engined passenger aircraft built in 1931 for commercial airlines. It was faster than any American military aircraft of that time. Designed by Richard A. von Hake, it was the last wood aircraft produced by the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation.
Design
The Orion was the last design using many identical elements from the Lockheed designs preceding it. It primarily used all the elements of the Altair, but included a forward top cockpit similar to the Vega, plus the NACA cowling introduced in the Air Express. Lockheed used the same basic fuselage mold and wing for all these wooden designs (the Explorer wing was unique), hence the close similarities between them. The Orion featured an enclosed cabin with seating for six passengers. The Orion received its Approved Type Certificate on 6 May 1931.
Gerard F. Vultee was Lockheed's chief engineer in 1928 through 1931 and was involved in the designs of all the Lockheed variants of that time and specifically designed Charles Lindbergh's Sirius.
Operational history
Although designed with the passenger market in mind, its speed made it a natural for air races. The first Bendix race of 1931 had a showing of two Orions, three Altairs and one Vega in a race that had only nine aircraft competing. On 11 July 1935, Laura H. Ingalls flew a Lockheed Orion, powered by a Pratt & Whitney Wasp engine, from Floyd Bennett Field to Burbank, California, establishing an East-West record for women. Two months later she flew it back to set a West-East record. American Airways, later renamed as American Airlines in 1934, operated several 9D Orions. Many safe miles were flown in airline service and the headlines for speed records proved the advanced design and reliability. Airline use as a passenger transport was curtailed, however. In 1934, the Civil Aeronautics Authority restricted use of single-engine aircraft from scheduled commercial passenger flights when flown in instrument flight conditions or over terrain that precluded safe emergency landings. It also became mandatory to have a copilot on aircraft fitted with both retractable undercarriage and flaps (which were fitted to some Orions) which therefore needed a larger two-seat cockpit. The requirements brought an end to the Orion as a passenger-carrying airliner in the US.
The crash of a wooden-winged Fokker F.10 in 1931 due to rot in the wooden wing structure also resulted in additional and onerous inspections that pushed the industry toward all metal designs, and led to the construction of one all-metal Orion, converted from a DL-2A Altair.
They were then used for mail or general cargo or sold for private use and charter. At least 12 used "Orions" were purchased for service in the Spanish Civil War and destroyed in use.
The Orion Explorer was a modified 9E. It had a damaged wing replaced with the wing of the Explorer 7 after a crash, and was fitted with a Pratt & Whitney Wasp S3H1 engine. Fixed landing gear and later floats were also fitted. It was used by Wiley Post and Will Rogers for a round-the-world flight attempt, but both men died when the aircraft crashed in Alaska on 15 August 1935.
Variants
thumb|A Swissair Orion undergoes flight tests
thumb|UC-85 in 1943
;Orion 9: 14 built, Pratt & Whitney Wasp A or Pratt & Whitney Wasp C
Operators
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- Lineas Aereas Occidentales
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- Swissair
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- Spanish Republican Air Force from LAPE, two from Swissair in 1935/1936.
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- Alaska Star Airlines
- American Airways
- Air Express Corporation
- Bowen Air Lines
- Detroit News
- Hal Roach Studios
- Northwest Airways
- Paul Mantz
- Transcontinental and Western Air/TWA
- United States Army Air Forces
- Shell Oil
- Varney Speed Lines
- Wyoming Air Service