cn148

Certain photos are more interesting than others since they can be frozen in time a bit more specific than others. This Brougham must have been sent to Oz by vessel no doubt together with its sister c/n 92 It was registered on 10.10.1928 to T E Rofe, Sydney and on the 30th that month started on a journey to England. It must have passed Dum Dum in early November that year. Unfortunately it was not a successful flight since it crashed on take off from Athens on Nov 26th..., due, perhaps not enough offerings to the old Greek Pantheon.... Stig

The four expedition DWCs ("Boston", "Chicago", "New Orleans" & "Seattle") departed Sand Point (near Seattle), Washington (USA) on 6 April 1924. "Seattle" (s/n 23-1229) only made it as far as Alaska before crashing beyond repair on 30 Apr 24, while "Boston" (s/n 23-1231) was abandoned in the Atlantic near the Faroe Islands. "Chicago" (s/n 23-1230) and "New Orleans" (s/n 23-1232) completed the global expedition on 28 September 1924.

The third a/c pictured here is "Boston II", the re-christened prototype (s/n 23-1210) DWC which joined the two surviving a/c on the final leg of their journey across the US in September 1924.

"Chicago" (restored in 1974) is in the Smithonian's A&SM in Washington D.C., while "New Orleans" was displayed in the NMUSAF from 1957 until 2005; more recently, it became part of the Museum of Flying in Santa Monica, CA. The "Seattle" wreckage was recovered and is now displayed hanging from the ceiling in the Alaska Aviation Heritage Museum in Anchorage, AK.

An ultimately unsuccessful early Lockheed design -- four Explorers were built (two "4's" and two "7's"), and all four were destroyed in crashes. This 7 Explorer (NR-101-W / cn 148) named "Yankee Doodle" had an especially cruel fate: after crashing, its wings were re-used on Wiley Post's Lockheed Orion-Explorer hybrid (NR12283) which was subsequently lost in a crash after takeoff near Point Barrow in Walakpa Lagoon, Alaska in 1933, killing both aviation pioneer Wiley Post and humorist Will Rogers. RIP.

see history at dmairfield.com/Collections/Cosgrove%20Collection/People/g...