Lockheed Model 8 Sirius
The Lockheed Model 8 Sirius is a small, single‑engine, propeller‑driven transport built in 1929 by Lockheed engineers Jack Northrop and Gerard Vultee at the request of Charles Lindbergh. Fifteen Sirius aircraft were built in 1929–1930, and it was a variant related to the Lockheed Altair.
The first Sirius bought by Lindbergh was named Tingmissartoq and, in 1931 (NR211), was converted into a floatplane. Lindbergh and his wife Anne Morrow flew it to the Far East, where she wrote the book North to the Orient.
The aircraft was damaged in Hankou, China, when it capsized while being lowered off the aircraft carrier HMS Hermes and had to be repaired by Lockheed.
In 1931 György Endresz and Sándor Magyar made a successful US–Hungary transatlantic flight in a Sirius 8A named Justice for Hungary.
In 1933 the Lindberghs upgraded their Sirius with a more powerful engine, a new directional gyro, and an artificial horizon. They flew across the northern Atlantic, scouting for Pan Am airline routes, stopping in Greenland, Europe, Russia, Africa, and Brazil, totaling about 30,000 miles and 21 countries. They returned to New York City at the end of 1933 to a big welcome.
The plane later lived in museums: it was in the American Museum of Natural History in New York until 1955, then moved to the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. It was given to the Smithsonian in 1959 and went on display at the National Air and Space Museum when the museum opened on the National Mall in 1976.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 11:14 (CET).