Wooden Wonders

With financial backing from Max Mamlock, owner of the Alco Cab Company, the Loughhead brothers formed the Alco Hydro-Aeroplane Company in 1912 and built their Model G. With three seats, one for the pilot and two for paying passengers, they doubled the revenue per flight giving air tours during the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition on San Francisco's waterfront.

Having moved their company to Santa Barbara, California, in 1916, the Loughead brothers then built the Model F-1. An ambitious flying boat design, made with rigorous stress analysis by Jack Northrop, it was the world's largest seaplane. First flown in 1918, it had a 74-foot upper wingspan and featured twin-engines and seating for ten, a profitable configuration for air tours at $5 per person. The Model F-1 was evaluated by the U.S. Navy, and eventually converted to land use as the Model F-1A.

The Model G and the Model F-1 possessed notable design qualities, but a Loughead airplane made for the common man brought about their greatest manufacturing innovation. The diminutive, single-seat Model S-1 was introduced in 1919 as a sport biplane with an upper wingspan of just 28 feet. It was the fuselage, however, that made this financially unsuccessful airplane such an important link in aviation history. The shell was assembled with a pressure-treated plywood skin that produced a sleek contour and had a tremendous weight-to-strength ratio. - 

The patented fuselage-forming technique devised by the Lougheads, Jack Northrop, and Anthony Stadlman ushered in a new era of record-setting aircraft. In 1926, now using the phonetic spelling of their name, the Lockheed Aircraft Company opened a factory in Hollywood, California, to begin production of a single-engine, cabin monoplane with a cantilevered high wing—the Vega. The curved form for the fuselage was produced in halves made in a large concrete mold. Three layers of thin spruce strips coated with casein glue were laid in. The lid was bolted down, and then an internal rubber air bladder was inflated at high pressure fusing the wooden shell. Once dried, the halves were joined around an elliptical, laminated framework made of spruce to create the monocoque fuselage. 

Assembled with the surfaces of its fuselage and cantilevered wing in a natural state and revealing its clean lines, the prototype Lockheed Vega 1 sits in the Hollywood factory. Purchased in advance by San Francisco newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst, it was named Golden Eagle and was first flown on July 4, 1927. Although it would disappear during the ill-fated Dole Race from California to Hawai'i later that year, its aerodynamic superiority paired with the 200 hp Wright J5C engine made the airplane an instant star. To fill new orders, the company moved to a bigger factory in Burbank, California, in March 1928.

The Lockheed Vega was a handmade airplane. The fuselage forming mold allowed for faster production, however, the body, wings, and tail empennage still required master woodworking skills and laborious detail. All metal mounts, fittings, and control linkage assemblies required custom components to be made on premises. Metalwork included cutting, welding, grinding and hot-dip galvanizing. The highly skilled labor force of master machinists, carpenters, and the innovative engineering concepts made Lockheed a leader in the golden age of aviation.