Like a gate guard this 1954 Lockheed L-1049 Super Constellation sits outside the Seattle Museum Of Flight. She is a huge airliner that represents the best piston engine technologies of the 1950's. This is when jet engines were under heavy development. Constellations were built from 1951 to 1958 which is a fairly short time for a large commercially produced aircraft. The jet age came in fast and put a stop to piston engine airplane production. Boeing first flew the 707 in 1957 and Douglas flew the DC-8 in 1958. Both airplanes were mass produced and changed commercial airline travel for the better. Jet travel was faster, smoother, quieter, and safer because jets flew higher and far above bad weather. That was the end of piston engines in modern commercial airlines. As jet engine technologies advanced inter-continental ranges grew. Today's jet engines are so efficient that modern jets use only two.
The museum bought this airplane from Toronto where she had finished her life as a delicatessen and cocktail lounge. The airplane was disassembled and trucked to Seattle in 2009. Today she wears a fresh coat of paint in the livery of TWA Trans Canada Air Lines and she looks great. No motors but some one did a great job of making propeller mounts inside the empty cowlings.