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Historic Flight

from SDASM Archives

• schulz_hl said:

  Lockheed 14 Super Electra, LOT = Polish National Airlines

• Batman_60 said:

  Lockheed 14H Super Electra SP-LMK c/n 1425 ex G-AGAV. "In May 1938, a team of aviators of the Polish airline LOT, made up of Waclaw Makowski, director of the LOT and first pilot, Zbigniew Wysiekierski, second pilot, Szymon Piskorz, mechanic and radionavigator, Alfons Rzeczewski, radio-navigator and Jerzy Krassowski, assistant, accomplished an experimental flight from the United States to Poland. This flight was carried out on board one of the aircraft bought by LOT and manufactured by Lockheed in California, a Lockheed Model 14H Super Electra (Polish registration SP-LMK). The crew took off from Burbank (Los Angeles) where these aircraft were manufactured, and after a tour of South America, flew the South Atlantic from Brazil to West Africa en route to Warsaw. (A poster celebrating the flight can be seen in a US Library of Congress/Matson Archive photo of the LOT/Imperial Airways Sales office in Jerusalem about 1939). The distance covered was of 15,441 mi (24,850 km; 13,418 nmi). They flew via the Central American cities of Mazatlan, Mexico City, Guatemala, and Panama, then via the South American cities of Lima, Peru; Santiago, Chile; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Rio de Janeiro and Natal in Brazil. They flew across the South Atlantic to Dakar, Senegal, in Africa and then to Casablanca, Tunis, and then on to Rome, Italy. The final leg of the flight brought them to Warszaw, Poland. The flying time was 85 hours between 13 May and 5 June. The overflight of the Atlantic - from Natal to Dakar - lasted 11 hours and 10 minutes (1,908 mi/3,070 km). This feat by Polish aviators really marked the history of air communication on a world level. (Prior to this flight airliners were delivered across the Atlantic as deck cargo on ships)." - Wiki