With AIN Media Group's Aviation International News and its predecessor Aviation Convention News celebrating the company's 50th year of continuous publication this year, AIN’s editorial staff is going back through the archives each month to bring readers some interesting events that were covered over the past half-century.
REWIND: (March 1979): Lockheed-Georgia Co. will discontinue JetStar II production following the manufacture of serial number 40, which is expected to roll off the company’s Marietta, Georgia assembly line at the end of 1979 or in early 1980. Disappointing sales with no foreseeable improvement on the horizon were the main reasons.
Many observers of corporate aviation believed that Lockheed’s decision would have come sooner, but the company was holding back to see whether Canadair’s Challenger would fly and how it would fare in its initial flight testing. Thus, they claim the successful initial flight test phase of the Challenger was a key factor in causing Lockheed not to invest in parts for future production airplanes and, consequently, in its decision to suspend the program.
FAST-FORWARD: The four-engine JetStar, notable for its dual, tail-mounted engine pods, became one of the iconic stars of the first wave of private jets. Launched in the late 1950s, the jet, which featured seating for up to 10, attracted such notable owners as Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Richard Nixon, and Yassir Arafat and even played a role in the finale of the 1964 James Bond classic Goldfinger, as the scene of the midair fight between the titular villain and 007. Lockheed had produced 204 JetStars by the end of production. According to the FAA registry, seven are still registered in the U.S. while an untold number may still soldier on in countries with less-stringent noise and avionics regulations.