Allan Lockheed

Allan Haines Lockheed (né Allan Haines Loughead; January 20, 1889 – May 26, 1969) was an American aviation engineer and businessman. He formed the Alco Hydro-Aeroplane Company along with his brother, Malcolm Loughead, which became Lockheed Corporation.

Loughead changed his name during 1934 to Allan Lockheed, the phonetic spelling of his family name, to avoid spelling confusion. He went on to begin two other aircraft manufacturing companies in the 1930s. He focused on real estate between the 1940s to 1960s.

Early life

Loughead was born in Niles, California, on the 20th of January 1889.

Flora Haines Loughead was a well-known novelist and journalist. The Loughead brothers attended elementary school only, but were mechanically inclined from an early age. During 1910, he became a pilot.

When Plew withdrew from aviation after two of his planes were wrecked and a student killed, Loughead became a flight instructor with the International Aeroplane Manufacturing Company in Chicago, and put on aerial exhibitions for 25% of the gate receipts. Later he said: "I was really rich the first week out. I made something like $850."

Allan Lockheed recalled in 1942 that the Model G was built mostly with hand tools and called the aircraft "one of the first successful three place tractor seaplanes in the United States." Walter Chrysler introduced the Lockheed brake system on the first Chrysler car in 1924.

The timing of the Vega was propitious. In 1927, Charles Lindbergh's flight from New York to Paris renewed interest in aviation. Soon after, James D. Dole, president of the Hawaiian Pineapple Company, offered a prize of $25,000 ($ in 2020) to the first person to fly from North America to Hawaii after August 12, 1927. As a result, George Hearst, publisher of the San Francisco Examiner, bought a Vega for $12,500 and entered it in the Dole Air Race under the name Golden Eagle. Later Loughead said, "The sales price represented a loss, but we were happy to absorb it. The prestige of selling the Vega to Hearst was tremendous." Hearst also ordered a Vega seaplane for a flight to Australia. The acquisition was through an exchange of stock.

Later career In 1930, Loughead formed the Lockheed Brothers Aircraft Corporation in Glendale, California, and developed the experimental Olympia Duo-four, a five-place high-wing monoplane with two engines mounted side by side in the wood monocoque fuselage nose. It had a plywood-covered wing and wheel pants.

Legacy Lockheed was enshrined in the National Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton, Ohio, in 1986. His daughter, Beth, was present, and his son John accepted the award on Lockheed's behalf.