Return of the Super Star

Lufthansa’s airworthy restoration of a Lockheed Super Star (L-1649A Super Constellation) is making great progress and the Deutsche Lufthansa Berlin-Stiftung (DLBS) has released details of the airliner’s modernised cockpit.

Lufthansa plans to return the 1950s-era propliner to passenger service, so it will need to be certified to modern standards. In order to help with this, the original cockpit – which has its origins in the 1930s – is being shed in favour of modern instrumentation.

The apparently simplest solution, to add modern instruments to the historic panel, was ruled out from the beginning due to constraints in the amount of space available, for, unlike other aircraft types from the 1950s, the Lockheed Super Star has a very narrow nose that offers very little room for the instrument panel. The only alternative was therefore to combine several flying instruments on modern screen displays in a glass cockpit and thus to find the best possible compromise between today’s requirements and the meagre amount of space available.

A meeting between the CEOs of Honeywell and Lufthansa Technik has therefore determined the best approach is to use a Honeywell avionics suite originally developed for the Lockheed C-130 Hercules.

www.lufthansa-technik.com

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