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Build a truck. Make it rugged.

Then fly it.

The big commercial cargo jets are no answer. They need paved runways 10,000 feet long. And elaborate hoists to draw cargo from their high side doors. Try driving a truck out of the side door of a plane.

What you do is build a plane with a cargo-shaped fuselage. With a floor strong enough to support a bulldozer or cargo weighing up to 45,000 pounds. With sturdy landing gear that can take the jolts and bumps of dirt fields. A plane able to land and takeoff on very short runways.

The U.S. Air Force did this. It had us build Hercules. And you can drive a truck out of its huge rear door. Today Hercules is this country's foremost tactical transport. A tanker rescue plane; an airship of many missions.

On skis, Hercules is life itself to men at the South Pole. At the other end of the world, the commercial L-100 version is the same to oil drillers on the frozen North Slope. To victims of flood, famine and earthquake throughout the world, Hercules has been the difference between life and death, bringing food and supplies to places other planes can't.

Because Hercules can do so much that other planes can't, it has been bought by 28 nations.

So far we've built more than 1200 Hercs in 45 different models and this amazing airlifter continues to roll off Lockheed assembly lines.

Lockheed – Georgia

A Division of Lockheed Aircraft Corporation

Marietta, Georgia     1973