Hughes outlined the initial performance specifications, but it was Lockheed that would design the sleek, distinctive, now-iconic aircraft. It was a critical turning point for Lockheed. As Hibbard said, “Up to that time we were sort of ‘small-time guys,’ but when we got to the Constellation we had to be ‘big time guys’ … We had to be right and we had to be good.” Being good meant introducing new features previously unseen on passenger planes,” Lockheed Martin shares.
“The Constellation would offer the first hydraulically boosted power controls, aviation’s equivalent of power steering. It would be faster than most World War II fighters at 350 mph. And, using award-winning technology pioneered by Lockheed a few years earlier, it would feature a pressurized cabin for 44 passengers that allowed the plane to fly faster and above 90 percent of weather disturbances, what Constellation regulars would come to call smooth sailing.”