Lockheed Explorer

The Lockheed Explorer was the least successful wooden airplane design produced by the Lockheed Aircraft Company. It combined the Vega fuselage with a cantilevered low wing and gave the single pilot an open cockpit behind the wings. Work began in 1927 for Sir Hubert Wilkins as an aircraft for exploring Antarctica, but that configuration was judged impractical and Wilkins used a Vega on floats instead. The incomplete aircraft was later taken out of storage for a nonstop flight attempt from Japan to the United States, funded by lumber dealer John Buffelen and members of the Tacoma Chamber of Commerce. Named City of Tacoma, it ended in disaster when overfilled fuel tanks spilled on takeoff, and two later attempts in newer Explorers also failed. Aviator Wiley Post fitted the wing of a wrecked Explorer to an Orion fuselage; that hybrid crashed near Point Barrow, Alaska, on 15 August 1935 after its engine failed, killing Post and Will Rogers. Lockheed built four Explorers, two of the Model 4 and two of the improved Model 7, and all were destroyed in crashes.