04/2009 | Passenger doors for the Super Star
Over the last few months, the Super Star team of Lufthansa Technik has searched far and wide for original passenger doors for conversion of the L-1649A with factory number 1018 from freighter back to passenger aircraft.
The US airline TWA had its L-1649A with the tail sign N7316C, still valid today, converted to a cargo plane in 1960 after only three years in service as a passenger aircraft. As part of the conversion work, the front and rear passenger doors on the port side, i.e. on the left-hand side, were replaced by large cargo doors. Now the team has to replace these with the “new”, 51-year-old, original doors of an L-1649A.
The project is indebted to the South African Airways Museum in Johannesburg, South Africa, for the successful outcome to this search. The Museum is prepared to make the passenger doors of the former Lufthansa Super Star with the original tail sign D-ALOL available to the project. As a replacement for the original doors, replicas matching the original are being built in Hamburg so that this L-1649A does not lose any of its functionality or good looks in the future.
D-ALOL with factory number 1042 flew in the service of Lufthansa from 1958 to 1962 and was then chartered to World Airways before Lufthansa sold it to South African airline Trek Airways in 1964. It continued flying in Trek Airways livery and at times with Luxair paintwork until it was finally withdrawn from service in 1971.
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The US airline TWA had its L-1649A with the tail sign N7316C, still valid today, converted to a cargo plane in 1960 after only three years in service as a passenger aircraft. As part of the conversion work, the front and rear passenger doors on the port side, i.e. on the left-hand side, were replaced by large cargo doors. Now the team has to replace these with the “new”, 51-year-old, original doors of an L-1649A.
The project is indebted to the South African Airways Museum in Johannesburg, South Africa, for the successful outcome to this search. The Museum is prepared to make the passenger doors of the former Lufthansa Super Star with the original tail sign D-ALOL available to the project. As a replacement for the original doors, replicas matching the original are being built in Hamburg so that this L-1649A does not lose any of its functionality or good looks in the future.
D-ALOL with factory number 1042 flew in the service of Lufthansa from 1958 to 1962 and was then chartered to World Airways before Lufthansa sold it to South African airline Trek Airways in 1964. It continued flying in Trek Airways livery and at times with Luxair paintwork until it was finally withdrawn from service in 1971.
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The former L-1649A Super Star of Lufthansa with the tail sign D-ALOL now is in a museum in South Africa.
D-ALOL was in service for Lufthansa from 1958 to 1962.
