Transcontinental & Western Air    Lockheed Orion 9E    NC12277    (c/n  192)

                              

                                  TWA operated three Lockheed Orions, primarily on mail carrying duties.  Two of them had been
                                  built for Air Express, a sort of 1930s transcontinental UPS/Fedex operation, as purely freight carriers.
                               .  TWA modified them to carry passengers .  NC12277 was put into service in May of 1933 but unfortun-
                                  ately crashed into the Missouri River very shortly after.   The second machine did go on to serve the air-
                                  line for several years, as did the third, (seen below) a purpose-built model 9E, the fuselage of which was
                                  used to make up the ill-fated "Orion-Explorer" in which Wiley Post and Will Rogers were killed in Alaska
                                  in 1935.

                                 Lockheed Orion 9E     NC 12283       (c/n  195)