Lockheed Vega variant
Lockheed Vega Vega 5C
Seven-seat cabin monoplane with revised tail surfaces, built for higher gross weight operations. It is the version for which the type's full specifications were published, including those of the floatplane configuration.
- 30
- Units built
- 1,167 km
- Range
- 6
- Passengers
History
The reference version
The Vega 5C was the last step of the wooden-fuselage family: seven seats, revised tail surfaces and a structure prepared for higher gross weights. It is the variant Lockheed aircraft since 1913 uses as the reference for tabulating the type's performance, and therefore the one that supplies this sheet's headline figures.
With the 450 hp Pratt & Whitney R-1340C Wasp and a two-bladed fixed-pitch propeller, the 5C reached 298 km/h with the NACA cowling, cruised at 266 km/h and had a range of 1,167 km, with a service ceiling of 5,800 m. Empty weight was 1,163 kg and gross weight 2,041 kg.
The floatplane Vega
The same table documents a floatplane configuration: the 5C on floats weighed 3,153 lb empty and 4,880 lb gross, reached 175 mph with the NACA cowling, cruised at 160 mph, had 620 miles of range and a ceiling of 17,000 ft. All of these are worse than the landplane's figures, the expected price of floats, but it was that version that let the Vega work from lakes and rivers where there was no runway.
The metal Vegas came from the 5C
The 5C is also the basis for the Detroit Aircraft Corporation's DL-1, which replaced the wooden fuselage with an aluminium one. From that branch came the DL-1B, the DL-1A Special and the two airframes the Army Air Corps bought as the Y1C-12 and Y1C-17. One Vega 5C was impressed by the Army Air Forces in 1942 as the UC-101.