Lockheed L-188 Electra variant
Lockheed L-188 Electra L-188AF
Unofficial designation for all-freight conversions of the L-188A carried out under a supplemental type certificate. It is the modification that gave the Electra decades of second life once passenger work dried up.
History
The Electra's second life
When jets pushed the Electra out of passenger work, the airframe proved far more valuable as a freighter. From 1968 a Lockheed subsidiary modified forty aircraft with one or two large doors in the left side of the fuselage and a reinforced cabin floor. The conversions never received an official factory designation: «L-188AF» — all-freight — and «L-188PF» — passenger-freight — are the working designations for transformations covered by a supplemental type certificate.
Logair, Quicktrans and the contractors
The major users of cargo Electras in the 1970s and 1980s were the civilian contractors of the US domestic military cargo networks Logair, run by the Air Force, and Quicktrans, run by the Navy: Universal Airlines, Overseas National Airways, Saturn Airways, Trans International Airlines and Zantop International Airlines. A less expected contractor was Hawaiian Airlines, which operated cargo Electras for Logair in the late 1970s.
In Australia, Ansett had its three Electras converted to freighters in 1970-71 and kept flying them until 1984. The result is that most Electras still in service at the end of the twentieth century were freighters, and some reached the twenty-first century in cargo and firefighting roles.