Sky Room Lockheed Air Terminal, Burbank 1941
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The defense and aerospace giant Lockheed Corporation relocated from Hollywood to Burbank, California, in 1928 and took over an abandoned glass factory near the corner of Empire Street and Kelton Street.
This location became the birthplace of early iconic aircraft such as the single-engine, high-wing wooden Lockheed Vega, flown by the female flying pioneer Amelisa Earhart. She was born in 1897, disappeared while flying over the Pacific Ocean in 1937 and was declared legally dead in 1939.
For the next 60 or so years, Lockheed helped transform a small agricultural community full of fruit groves into a global aerospace hub.
During WWII, some 90,000 workers in Burbank produced over 19,000 aircraft, including the legendary P-38 Lightning and licensed Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombers.
In 1942, to protect the plant from potential Japanese air attacks, the War Department collaborated with Hollywood set designers from the Disney Company and covered the entire airport and factory under a massive burlap tarp with fake trees, painted streets, and dummy houses to look like a residential suburb from above.
The company also produced this Lockheed Hudson, shown on the cover of this 1941 menu for the Sky Room at Burbank Airport. This light bomber and coastal renaissance aircraft was operated primarily by the Royal Air Force in Britain and helped deliver many agents into occupied France. It was also used by the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Royal Australian Air Force.
Post WWII, groundbreaking spy planes and stealth aircraft - including the U-2, SR-71 Blackbird, and F-117 Nighthawk - were designed and assembled at the giant factory.
The Sky Room operated at Burbank Airport from 1940 to 1967 and this menu cover of the Hudson aircraft in flight would have been created to show off the factory’s latest innovation.
People treated a trip to the airport as an occasion during this era. Even if they couldn’t afford to fly, it was fun to watch aircraft taking off and landing. As you will see from this menu, food and drink offerings were extensive and families would make a day of it.
Burbank Airport has had many name changes. It has been United Airport (1930-34) Union Air Terminal (1934-40) Lockheed Air Terminal (1940 – 1967) Hollywood-Burbank airport (1967-1978) Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport (1978- 2003) and Bob Hope Airport (after comedian British-American comedian Bob Hope, who died in 2003.) In 2017, it was rebranded Hollywood Burbank Airport.
With the historic Warner Bros Studio, Walt Disney HQ, Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network animation studios and many other film production facilities, Burbank is renowned today as the ‘Media Capital of the World.’
Lockheed – now Lockheed-Martin – vacated the city in the early 1990s and has now branched into space technology but its legacy remains a proud part of Burbank’s history.
Each order includes a print of the interior menu.
All printed in USA.
