Herpa Wings HE573030

Herpa Wings HE573030 replicates in 1/200 scale diecast the L-1649A Starliner registration D-ALUB in Lufthansa livery circa 1960.

Deutsche Lufthansa

Deutsche Lufthansa is the flag carrier and largest airline of Germany, founded on January 6, 1953, as Aktiengesellschaft für Luftverkehrsbedarf (Luftag).

The airline acquired the Deutsche Lufthansa name and logo on August 6, 1954, and commenced operations on April 1, 1955. The airline’s name comes from the German words Luft, meaning “air,” and Hansa, for the Hanseatic League.

Subsidiary airlines are Austrian Airlines, Swiss International Air Lines, Brussels Airlines, and Eurowings, including Germanwings.

Lockheed L-1649 starliner

The Lockheed L-1649 Starliner is an American four-engine transcontinental airliner and is the final model of the Lockheed Constellation series.

Its first flight took place on October 11, 1956, and it entered service with Trans World Airlines (TWA) on June 1, 1957. Production concluded in 1958, with 44 airframes completed. The last examples in airline service were retired by 1980.

The Starliner was developed in response to the Douglas DC-7C Seven Seas. It utilized the L-1049G fuselage but featured new wings spaning 46 meters (150 feet).

The cockpit crew consisted of two pilots, a flight engineer, a radio operator, and a navigator, while the passenger cabin could accommodate up to 99 passengers.

The aircraft is powered by four Wright R-3350 Duplex-Cyclone engines, which are supercharged, air-cooled, 18-cylinder, twin-row radial engines mounted two per wing. These drive three-bladed Hamilton Standard Hydromatic constant-speed fully-feathering propellers.