Lockheed EC-121 Constellation (VH-EAG)

Fantastic!!

A great looking airplane. Glad that we (the U.S.) are working on refurbishing Columbine II. Having another good looking Connie in the air will be great.

Stephen, thank you for all the great photos you post, especially Connie!

Nice shot!

Thank you for all your nice comments, I do like to post the ledgends of the air from the past as these aircraft led us to our current types of aircraft.

I think one of the reasons this photo is especially nice is that you rarely see a Connie from this angle. It shows of the lines and curves of the airplane extremely well. Great shot!

I love this airplane. As a kid, I lived on the approach path about 3 miles from Lockheed (Now Burbank KBUR) Airport. Connie's would come over the house about 1000 feet. With 72 cylinders, there's NOTHING that sounds like that! I'll never forget it. Imagine changing and/or cleaning the spark plugs!

Dennis we must have been neighbors. I also remember the large number of Connies in and out of BUR. Many came in for mods or repair including military types. Also P2V, U2, P3 and Navy Vikings and a lot of other military traffic. I was 1/4 mile east of the middle marker and south of the ILS for runway 7. Learned to fly at Sky Roamers at BUR.
Stuart

It's NOT a 1049, it's a 749!!!!!

>>> Ric Lang... actually it is a C-121C... This aircraft was identified as a Lockheed C-121C in the FAA registry until it was deregistered in 1994. It still retains that identification as a C-121C model in Australia's "Civil Aircraft Register", albeit using Lockheed's factory serial number (4176) rather than the USAF s/n (54-0157) as the FAA registry used.

This Lockheed was originally built to fulfill a military contract as a C-121C with MSN 1049F-4176 and delivered to the United States Air Force MATS in 1955, assigned USAF s/n 54-157. She flew with MATS, the MS ANG, the WV ANG, and the PA ANG until being retired in 1977. Flown to Davis Monthan AFB and later restored for her trans Pacific flight to Australia with her current Australian civil aviation VH-EAG registration.

>>>James Craig... that is a great commentary you shared with us regarding your USN time spent flying an EC-121K.

The EC-121 identification below Stephen Gardener's photo is a FA "glitch". As I understand, FA is automatically labeling the Connies in this manner.

This is not an EC-121. It is a C-121 The 'E' is for Electronics. The EC-121 has a very large search radar antenna and radome on the belly and a smaller altitude radar antenna and radome on the top of the aircraft. We could pick up an aircraft on search radar up to 300 plus miles. I have over 1,200 hours in the EC-121K Navy model flying out of Argentia, Newfoundland and Keflavik, Iceland. When flying out of Argentia, our alternate was the Azores, and flying out of Keflavik or alternate was either Thule, Greenland or Prestwick, Scotland ( we flew two different barriers out of Keflavik). I made it to Azores once and Prestwick once. I was in AEW VW-13 Squadron. We were one of the very few Squadrons in peace time that sent all our messages to NORAD via FLASH precedence. We had 15 minutes, form the time we picked up an aircraft contact, calculated position, heading and speed, to get a radio message to NORAD. We used the APS-20 Search Radar which had power output of 2 MW. This mission was an extension of the DEW Line. Circa 1960s.

As far as I know, the EC-121 distinguishes itself for a cylindrical hump that houses a radar. It was one of the first AWACS.