Night Flight

"Star of America" is the name of the Lockheed L-1649 Starliner at the new TWA Hotel at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City.

The Starliner was the highest evolution of the graceful and distinctive form of Constellations and Super Constellations that flew the domestic and worldwide routes of Trans World Airlines.

"Star of America" sits proudly on the tarmac of one of the terminals she might have called at in her prime. The TWA Hotel occupies the preserved portion of the Eero Saarinen designed TWA Flight Center. The futuristic for its time terminal was designed around the new demands of the jet age. When it opened in 1962, at what was then known as Idlewild International Airport, while the real glamour-gals would have been TWA's new "StarStream" 707's, its gates and soaring glass would still have seen the airline's Constellations, and no Connie was quite as lithe, quite as graceful as the L-1649 Starliner.

©2020 Steve Ember