Model of Lockheed "Constellation" Civil Airliner, scale 1:48.

This is a model of the Lockheed L-749a airliner, Constellation. When the prototype was designed in 1939 for passenger transport, the airliner was immediately requisitioned for troop carrying. After the Second World War it took just three months to fit-out the Constellation for its return to civil aircraft duty. It began to serve the intercontinental routes that were opening up in peacetime, becoming one of the most prominent and successful passenger aircraft of the 1940s and 1950s. This 1:48 scale model was one of four model airliners gifted by British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) in 1951. P. L. Sumner, of the Aeronautical Section of the Science Museum, recorded at this time, 'Our collection of aircraft models is not so up-to-date on the civil side as on the military. I consider this generous offer by BOAC as an excellent opportunity to obtain some models of popular type modern civil airliners.'