Tag Archives: Marshall Headle

1 May 1937

Lockheed XC-35 36-353 in flight. (U.S. Air Force)
Headle

1 May 1937: The Lockheed Aircraft Company’s chief test pilot, Marshall Headle, took the Lockheed XC-35, Air Corps serial number 36-353, for its first flight. Ordered by the Air Corps in 1936 as a high-altitude research aircraft, and for the development of cabin pressurization, the XC-35 Supercharged Cabin Transport Airplane was a highly modified Lockheed Electra 10A. It was the first airplane to be specifically built with a pressurized cabin.

The Citizen-News, Hollywood, California, reported:

Mystery Airplane In Air For Tests

     The Army’s secretly built stratosphere plane took off on its first test flight today at the Lockheed Aircraft Corp’s factory at Burbank with Marshall Headle, chief test pilot for the company, its sole occupant.

     Only routine, low altitude maneuvers were to be carried out today, however, to test the plane’s flying characteristics, and it was expected that high altitude tests would not begin until next week.

     Shortly before noon a canvas curtain that was erected about the mystery plane immediately after an unauthorized photograph brought stormy protests from the War Dept., was lowered and the big twin engined, low wing craft rumbled to the end of the factory airport.

     A quick sprint and the silver bodied plane was in the air safely.

     Company officials continued their silence on performance expected of the military experimental ship.

Citizen-News, Vol. 33, No. 27, 1 May 1937, Page 3, Column 1

The XC-35 had been rolled out of the plant several days earlier. It was photographed by a newspaper photographer and the image published in a local newspaper. The photographer had hidden behind bushes on a small hill near the plant. This resulted in an immediate response from the military, with the airplane being hidden behind a canvas enclosure. Armed guards were ordered to “shoot cameras out of the hands of photographers and ask questions afterward—but to destroy all cameras.” There were also roving vehicle patrols, etc. Army intelligence officers interrogated the photographer.

The Army Air Corps was awarded the Collier Trophy for 1937 for the XC-35 project.

With a strengthened circular fuselage and smaller windows, the XC-35′s passenger compartment was pressurized by engine turbo-superchargers and controlled by a flight engineer. Cabin pressure could be maintained at the equivalent of 12,000 feet (3,658 meters) above sea level, at an actual altitude of 30,000 feet (9,144 meters).

Lockheed XC-35 engineer station. (U.S. Air Force)

A crew of three and two passengers were accommodated within the pressurized section, and there was room for another passenger to the rear of the pressure bulkhead, which could only be used at lower altitudes.

Lockheed XC-35 36-353.

The Lockheed XC-35 was similar to the Lockheed Model 10 Electra, with the same dimensions: length, 38 feet, 7 inches (11.760 meters), wingspan 55 feet (16.764 meters), and height, 10 feet, 1 inch (3.073 meters). It had a total wing area of 458.5 square feet (42.596 square meters). The airplane had an empty weight of 7,940 pounds (3,602 kilograms), and gross weight of 10,500 pounds (4,763 kilograms).

The Lockheed XC-35 was powered by two air-cooled, supercharged, 1,343.804-cubic-inch-displacement (22.021 liter) Pratt & Whitney R-1340-43 (Wasp T5H1) single-row, nine-cylinder radial engines with a compression ratio of 6:1. The R-1340-43 had a Normal and Takeoff Power rating of 550 horsepower at 2,200 r.p.m. from Sea Level to 3,000 feet (914 meters), burning 92-octane gasoline. It was direct drive. The engine was 3 feet, 6.25 inches (1.073 meters) long, 4 feet, 3.50 inches (1.308 meters) in diameter, and weighed 864 pounds (392 kilograms). The engines drove two-bladed, variable pitch propellers.

The XC-35 had a cruise speed of 214 miles per hour (344 kilometers per hour), and maximum speed of 236 miles per hour (380 kilometers per hour) at 20,000 feet (6,096 meters). It could climb at a rate of 1,125 feet per minute (5.7 meters per second), and its service ceiling was 31,500 feet (9,601 meters).

Able to fly above 30,000 feet (9,144 meters), the XC-35 was later used by NACA for thunderstorm penetration research flights. In 1948 it was transferred to the Smithsonian Institution.

Lockheed XC-35 35-363. (U.S. Air Force)
Lockheed XC-35 36-353. (U.S. Air Force)

© 2025, Bryan R. Swopes

Marshall Headle (21 March 1893–14 May 1945)

Paul Mantz, Amelia Earhart and Lockheed’s chief pilot, Marshall Headle, with Earhart’s Model 10E Electra Special. (California State University Northridge, Coralie Hewitt Tillack Collection)
Marshall Headle, as a junior at MAC,1911 (Index)

Marshall Headle was born 21 March 1893 at Winthrop, Massachussetts, United States of America, He was the third child of Edwin Charles Headle, a clergyman, and Clarendo Yeomans Headle. He attended Winthrop High School before going on to the Massachussetts Agricultural College at Bolton. He graduated in 1912 with a Bachelor of Science degree (B.Sc.) in Floriculture.

Headle enlisted in the United States Army in 1917, and attended aviation ground school at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.). His flight training took place at Tours, France. He held the rank of First Lieutenant, Air Service, American Expeditionary Force, United States Army. Lieutenant Headle served as a flight instructor at Tours and at the 2nd Aviation Instruction Center.

1st Lt. Marshall Headle, Air Service, United States Army.

From 1919 to 1922, Headle was attached to the United States Embassy in Paris, France. He then returned to the United States.

Marshall Headle enlisted as a private in the United States Marine Corps, 25 October 1924. He served with the Marines in China as an airplane crew chief and aviator. He was promoted to gunnery sergeant (Gy.Sgt.). He returned to the United States in 1928, and resigned from the Marine Corps to become a civilian pilot.

Lockheed test pilot Marshall Headle with a Lockheed airplane, circa 1930. (San Diego Air & Space Museum Archives AL77A-032)

In 1929, Headle married Dorothea Evelyn Breeder.  They had two children, Marshall Ronald Headle, born in 1932, and Michele Ann Headle. (Mrs. Headle died in Honolulu, Hawaii, 25 May 2010, at the age of 99 years.)

Headle joined Lockheed in 1929, as chief pilot, flight operations. On 30 October 1929, Headle made the first flight of the all-metal Detroit-Lockheed DL-2 Sirius.

In 1930, Headle attempted to set a world altitude record with a 500 kilogram (1,102 pounds) payload, flying a Lockheed Vega. He used a pressurized tank of oxygen with a flexible tube.

Marshall Headle demonstrates his high-altitude breathing apparatus, standing with his Lockheed Vega. (International Newsreel/Shamokin News-Dispatch)
Marshall E. (“Babe”) Headle. (Photograph courtesy of Neil Corbett, Test and Research Pilots, Flight Test Engineers)

In 1931, he took the Model 9 Orion, NX960Y, on its first flight.

In 1933, became the company’s chief test pilot, succeeding Wiley Post. He also traveled world-wide demonstrating Lockheed’s airplanes.

Headle also made the first flight of Gerard Vultee’s Vultee V-1A single-engine airliner, 19 February 1933.

On 29 July 1937, he made the first flight of the Lockheed Model 14 Super Electra. The Model 14 fuselage was stretched, resulting in the Model 18 Lodestar. Headle, with Louis Upshaw, took the prototype, NX17385, for its first flight, 21 September 1939. The Lodestar would be developed into the Lockheed Ventura bomber.

On 16 September 1940, Headle made the first flight of the Lockheed YP-38 service test prototype. Headle was featured in magazine and billboard advertisements for Camel cigarettes in 1941.

Marshall Headle, Lockheed test pilot, was featured in advertising for Camel cigarettes. (Yale University Library)

In 1941, he was injured in an altitude chamber accident and was no longer able to fly.

Prototype Lockheed Model 18 Lodestar, NX17385. (Lockheed Martin)

Marshall Headle died 14 May 1945 at the age of 52 years. He was buried at the Valhalla Memorial Cemetery, Burbank, California.

Lockheed test pilot Marshall Headle with a YP-38 prototype at Burbank, circa 1940. (Lockheed Martin)

© 2023, Bryan R. Swopes