Northrop Alpha
Model Airplane News Cover Art for January, 1933
by Jo Kotula
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The Northrop Alpha was an American single-engine, all-metal, seven-seat, low-wing monoplane fast mail/passenger transport aircraft used in the 1930s

     

Northrop Alpha
left: prototype as shown on the cover of M.A.N.
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Drawing on his experience with the Lockheed Vega, John K. Northrop designed the Alpha, an advanced mail/passenger transport aircraft. In addition to all-metal construction, the plane used revolutionary aerodynamic advancements:

• wing fillets researched at the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology, and
• a multicellular stressed-skin wing of Northrop's own design which was later successfully used on Douglas DC-2 and Douglas DC-3.
• rubber deicer boots on wing and tail leading edges
• state-of-the-art radio navigation equipment,

The aircraft had day or night, all-weather capability and was very well-received. The aircraft first flew in 1930, with a total of 17 built.The Alpha entered service with Transcontinental & Western Air (future TWA). The trip from San Francisco to New York required 13 stops and took just over 23 hours. Three Alphas were operated by the US military as C-19 VIP transports until 1939. The Alpha was further developed into a dedicated fast transport Northrop Gamma.

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