📦 cargo retired
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3 photos from Wikimedia Commons · credits & licences
- 1. Northrop Alpha: Wikimedia Commons· Public domain
- 2. Northrop Alpha (Y1C-19): Wikimedia Commons· Public domain
- 3. AL77B-062 Northrop Alpha cn 3 NC961Y Grand Central Air Terminal (14334332410): San Diego Air & Space Museum Archives· Public domain
what is it?
The Northrop Alpha is an American single-engine, all-metal, seven-seat, low-wing monoplane fast mail/passenger transport aircraft used in the 1930s. Design work was done at the Avion Corporation, which in 1929, became the Northrop Aircraft Corporation based in Burbank, California.
How to recognise it: 1 engine · 12.8 m wingspan
base stats
Bars compare against all aircraft: 3,500 km/h, 20,000 km, 850 seats; size and number built on a log scale up to 640 t (An-225) and 45,000 built (Cessna 172).
fun facts
- First flew 96 years ago, in 1930.
- Top speed is 2.2× a car on the Dutch motorway (130 km/h).
- Wingspan of 12.8 m: about 3 cars parked nose to tail.
- Range of 2,650 km: 15× Amsterdam to Brussels.
spec sheet
- first flight
- 1930
- introduced
- 1931
- retired
- 1975
- status
- retired
- number built
- 17
- role
- transport
- makers
- Northrop
- engines
- 1× Pratt & Whitney Wasp R-1340-SC1
- length
- 8.7 m
- wingspan
- 12.8 m
- height
- 2.7 m
- max take-off weight
- 2,045 kg
- top speed
- 285 km/h
- cruise speed
- 233 km/h
- range
- 2,650 km
- ceiling
- 5,885 m
Specs are for the version in the Wikipedia article's specification section. Blank means the sources don't say.
Sources: Wikidata Q1660543, Wikipedia: Northrop Alpha (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-24.