Lockheed Vega variant
Lockheed Vega DL-1
Vega 5C with an aluminium fuselage, built by the Detroit Aircraft Corporation. It is the family's metal branch, and from it came the DL-1B, the DL-1A Special and the two airframes evaluated by the US Army Air Corps.
- 4
- Units built
- 966 km
- Range
- 6
- Passengers
History
The metal Vega
The DL-1 was a Vega 5C with the wooden fuselage replaced by a formed aluminium one, the work of the Detroit Aircraft Corporation. It kept the Vega's aerodynamic formula — high cantilever wing, clean fuselage, wheel fairings — while changing the material that made it possible.
In 1931 the United States Army Air Corps bought two DL Vegas: the first was designated Y1C-12 and the second, a DL-1B, Y1C-17. Both had formed metal fuselages, and the Y1C-17 also carried additional fuel tanks in the wings.
A short but fertile branch
The family's three metal designations all descend from the DL-1: the DL-1B, a seven-seat cabin monoplane similar to the DL-1 and also built in Detroit, the record-breaking DL-1A Special, and the two military evaluation airframes. It is a short branch in numbers, but the one that produced the Vega that flew furthest from home: the DL-1A that Glen Kidston took from the United Kingdom to South Africa and that ended its days in Australia.