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After months of watching the Lockheed plane’s construction, the people of Santa Barbara were finally able to watch its first flight. (Image: Aerial Age, October 28, 1918)
By Betsy J. Green
March 28, 1918 was the big day that everyone in Santa Barbara had been waiting for. This was the launch day for the Loughead/Lockheeds’ seaplane that they had been building at their workshop on the corner of State and Mason streets. (There is a plaque on State Street marking that location.) “Thousands Witness Christening of Loughead Craft,” announced the local paper. (You can get a good look at a replica of the F-1 at the Maritime Museum — just look up when you are in the main room. A ¼-scale model of the Lockheed brothers’ plane is suspended in the air.)
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