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John K. Northrop worked, as a young man, for the
Loughead brothers and their Loughead Aircraft
Manufacturing Company, in Santa Barbara, until the
end in 1920. He designed the financially
unsuccessful but revolutionary S-1, elements of
which led to his design for a new monoplane, the
"Vega". With the Vega he convinced Allan Loughead
to form a new Lockheed Aircraft Company with
Northrop as a founder and chief engineer, and the
rest is history. The first Vega flew in 1927.
Before he left Lockheed two years later to form
Avion Corporation, he designed the "Air Express" to
allow the pilots of the day to remain outside. The
most noteworthy Air Express was the one bought by
the Gilmore Oil Company and flown by the colorful
Roscoe Turner with his lion cub "Gilmore". The
design and colorful paint scheme make it my
favorite of the all wood Vega family. It is
remarkable that all of the Vega derivatives (Vega,
Air Express, Explorer, Sirius, Altair, and Orion)
shared, with relatively few modifications, the same
wing and fuselage.
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