Queen Of The Skies: The Lockheed Constellation

Claude Luisada's "Queen of the Skies" is the story of the Lockheed Constellation, one of the most important airplanes in aviation history. This extensively researched account, gathered from archival documents, interviews and the author's own experiences, sets the history of the Constellation against the backdrop of the years 1940 to 1980, a period that extends through World War II, Vietnam and the Cold War. A revolutionary commercial propeller transport, the Lockheed Constellation burst on the aviation scene in the early 1940s. Unheralded for the most part due to wartime secrecy, it finally entered commercial service in 1946, and promptly set new standards for speed, range, reliability and passenger comfort. Told in a friendly writing style and illustrated with more than one hundred photographs and diagrams, "Queen of the Skies" is a fascinating story, particularly for airplane or aviation history enthusiasts.