The Lockheed Model 8 Sirius was a single-engined,

propeller A propeller (colloquially often called a screw if on a ship or an airscrew if on an aircraft) is a device with a rotating hub and radiating blades that are set at a pitch to form a helical spiral which, when rotated, exerts linear thrust upon ...

-driven

monoplane A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple planes. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing confi ...

designed and built by

Jack Northrop John Knudsen Northrop (November 10, 1895 – February 18, 1981) was an American aircraft industrialist and designer who founded the Northrop Corporation in 1939. His career began in 1916 as a draftsman for Loughead Aircraft Manufacturing Com ...

and Gerard Vultee while they were engineers at Lockheed in 1929, at the request of

Charles Lindbergh Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974) was an American aviator, military officer, author, inventor, and activist. On May 20–21, 1927, Lindbergh made the first nonstop flight from New York City to Paris, a distance o ...

. Two versions of the same basic design were built for the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...

, one made largely of wood with a fixed landing gear, and one with a metal skin and retractable landing gear, designated Y1C-25 and Y1C-23, respectively. Its basic role was intended to be as a utility transport.

History

A total of 15 Sirius aircraft were constructed in 1929 and 1930. The first and best known Sirius was bought by Lindbergh, and in 1931, as NR-211, it was retrofitted to be a

float plane A floatplane is a type of seaplane with one or more slender floats mounted under the fuselage to provide buoyancy. By contrast, a flying boat uses its fuselage for buoyancy. Either type of seaplane may also have landing gear suitable for land, ...

."Lockheed Sirius "Tingmissartoq", Charles A. Lindbergh."
''Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum''. Retrieved: November 26, 2015. Lindbergh and his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh flew it to the

Far East The ''Far East'' was a European term to refer to the geographical regions that includes East and Southeast Asia as well as the Russian Far East to a lesser extent. South Asia is sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons. The ter ...

, where she wrote a book about their experiences there entitled ''

North to the Orient ''North to the Orient'' is a 1935 book by the American writer Anne Morrow Lindbergh. It is the account of the 1931 flight by her and her husband, Charles Lindbergh, from the United States to Japan and China, by the northern route over the Arctic ...

''. The aircraft was damaged in

Hankou Hankou, alternately romanized as Hankow (), was one of the three towns (the other two were Wuchang and Hanyang) merged to become modern-day Wuhan city, the capital of the Hubei province, China. It stands north of the Han and Yangtze Rivers wher ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

, when it accidentally capsized while being lowered off the

aircraft carrier An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying, and recovering aircraft. Typically, it is the capital ship of a fleet, as it allows a ...

HMS ''Hermes'', and had to be sent back to Lockheed to be repaired. In 1931, György Endresz and Sándor Magyar made a successful US–Hungary transatlantic flight with a Lockheed Sirius 8A aircraft named "Justice for Hungary". In 1933, the Lindberghs set out again with their Sirius, now upgraded with a more powerful engine, a new directional gyro, and an

artificial horizon The attitude indicator (AI), formerly known as the gyro horizon or artificial horizon, is a flight instrument that informs the pilot of the aircraft orientation relative to Earth's horizon, and gives an immediate indication of the smallest orien ...

. This time, their route would take them across the northern

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...

, with no particular destination, but primarily to scout for potential new airline routes for

Pan Am Pan American World Airways, originally founded as Pan American Airways and commonly known as Pan Am, was an American airline that was the principal and largest international air carrier and unofficial overseas flag carrier of the United States ...

. While at a refueling stop in

Angmagssalik Tasiilaq, formerly Ammassalik and Angmagssalik, is a town in the Sermersooq municipality in southeastern Greenland. With 1,985 inhabitants as of 2020, it is the most populous community on the eastern coast, and the seventh-largest town in Green ...

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is t ...

, the

Inuit Inuit (; iu, ᐃᓄᐃᑦ 'the people', singular: Inuk, , dual: Inuuk, ) are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories ...

of the area gave the Sirius a nickname, "

Tingmissartoq ''Tingmissartoq'' was the name given to a Lockheed Model 8 Sirius flown by Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh in the 1930s. ''Tingmissartoq'' means "one who flies like a big bird"; the plane was thus christened by an Inuit boy in Godthaab (Nuuk), ...

" or "one who flies like a bird". They continued on their flight and made many stops in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

, then south to

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

, back across the southern Atlantic to

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

and back over the skies of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

at the end of 1933, after 30,000 miles and 21 countries; droves of people turned out to greet them as they landed. The aircraft was in the

American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 inter ...

in New York City until 1955, when ownership was transferred to the

National Museum of the United States Air Force The National Museum of the United States Air Force (formerly the United States Air Force Museum) is the official museum of the United States Air Force located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, northeast of Dayton, Ohio. The NMUSAF is the ...

Dayton, Ohio Dayton () is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County. The 2020 U.S. census estimate put the city population at 137,644, while Greater Day ...

. It was given to the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

in 1959, and it went on display at the

National Air and Space Museum The National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, also called the Air and Space Museum, is a museum in Washington, D.C., in the United States. Established in 1946 as the National Air Museum, it opened its main building on the Nat ...

when the original facility opened on the National Mall in 1976.

Variants

;Lockheed 8 Sirius: Single-engine, two-seat, long-range, high-performance aircraft; one built for Charles Lindbergh. ;Sirius 8: First production version, similar to the Lockheed 8 Sirius; one built. ;Sirius 8A: Equipped with an enlarged tail surface; eight built."Lockheed Sirius 8A NC117W."
''Delta Mike Airfield'', 2008. Retrieved: November 26, 2015. ;Sirius 8C: Four-seat version fitted with an enclosed cabin seating two passengers, located between the engine and the pilot's cockpit; one built. ;DL-2: Metal fuselage and wooden wings. One built by the

Detroit Aircraft Corporation The Detroit Aircraft Corporation was incorporated in Detroit, Michigan on July 10, 1922, as the Aircraft Development Corporation. The name was changed in 1929. The Detroit corporation owned the entire capital stock of the Ryan Aircraft Corp., Air ...

Operators

; *

Spanish Republican Air Force The Spanish Republican Air Force was the air arm of the Armed Forces of the Second Spanish Republic, the legally established government of Spain between 1931 and 1939. Initially divided into two branches: Military Aeronautics ('' Aeronáutica M ...

Nash, David
"Aircraft that took part in the Spanish Civil War."
''Aircraft of the Spanish Civil War''. Retrieved: January 15, 2015.

Specifications (Lindbergh's Sirius 8)

Lockheed_8_Sirius_3-view_Aero_Digest_March,1930

References

Notes

Bibliography

* Francillon, René J. ''Lockheed Aircraft since 1913''. London: Putnam, 1982. ;

External links

Aircraft of the Smithsonian: Lockheed 8 Sirius

Lockheed Sirius in Geneva (1933)
{{Detroit aircraft

Sirius Sirius is the list of brightest stars, brightest star in the night sky. Its name is derived from the Ancient Greek language, Greek word , or , meaning 'glowing' or 'scorching'. The star is designated α Canis Majoris, Latinisation ...

1920s United States civil utility aircraft Single-engined tractor aircraft Low-wing aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1929