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LOCKHEED SIRIUS 8A NC167W
A SPORT/ MAIL PLANE; THE LAST SIRIUS
This airplane is a Lockheed Sirius 8A (S/N 167; ATC #300)
manufactured during July 1930 by Lockheed Aircraft Corporation,
Burbank,
CA. It left the factory with a Pratt & Whitney
Wasp C engine (S/N 3168) of 450 HP. It was a two-place
airplane, weighing 4,600 pounds.
NC167W sold on August 9, 1930 to Wedell-Williams Air Service,
Inc., Patterson,
LA. We find the airplane landing at Tucson
on August 11, 1930 flown by Marshall
Headle carrying his
wife as passenger (they had been married the previous January). They
were eastbound from Burbank, CA to El Paso, TX on what was
undoubtedly the first leg of the ferry flight to Louisiana
of this brand new Sirius. What with New Orleans being so
close to Patterson, this might have been a fine, belated
honeymoon for the Headles!
Wedell-Williams kept the airplane barely two years. They
sold it on March 5, 1932 to Lucille Trautwein Bottenfield,
Dripping Springs, Austin, TX. Over the next year it
passed through four owners, until, on July 17, 1933 it was
sold to Glen Harroun, c/o Bowen Air Lines, Fort Worth, TX. Harroun
had it converted on March 13, 1935 to a Sports Cabin Sirius
Model 8C under ATC Gr. 2-374. It then transferred to Bowen
Air Lines, Inc. on April 2, 1935.
NC167W was then apparently leased to the nascent Delta Air
Lines, Inc., Atlanta, GA and used as a mail carrier on Delta’s
Dallas-Charleston, SC route. It suffered an accident
at Birmingham, AL on December 24, 1935. Pilot R.C.
Reinhard received unidentified injuries and the airplane
was “washed
out”.
UPLOADED: 06/22/06 REVISED:
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