The Lockheed Model 12 Electra Junior, more commonly known as the Lockheed 12 or L-12, was an eight-seat, six-passenger all-metal twin-engine transport aircraft of the late 1930s designed for small airlines, companies, and wealthy private individuals. A smaller version of the Lockheed Model 10 Electra, the Lockheed 12 was not popular as an airliner but was widely used as a corporate and government transport. Several L12s were also used for testing new aviation technologies. The new transport had its first flight on June 27, 1936at 12:12 PM local time, a time deliberately chosen for the Model 12's number. The "Electra Junior" name did not catch on like the original Electra's name. Most users referred to the aircraft by its model number, the Lockheed 12. Even though the Lockheed 12 had won the government's feeder airliner competition, most airlines rejected it, and very few Lockheed 12s flew as airliners. One notable airline user was the newly renamed Continental Air Lines, which had a fleet of three Lockheed 12s that ran between Denver, Colorado, and El Paso, Texas, in the late 1930s. Another was British West Indian Airways Ltd., which flew the Lockheed 12 on Caribbean routes in the Lesser Antilles during the mid-1940s. The Lockheed 12 proved much more popular as a transport for company executives or government officials. Oil and steel companies were among the primary users. A number were purchased as military staff transports by the United States Army Air Corps, which designated the type as the C-40, and by the United States Navy, which used the designation JO, or in one peculiar case, R3O-2. The U.S. Army and Navy, Britain's Royal Air Force, and the Royal Canadian Air Force requisitioned many civilian Lockheed 12s when WWII broke out.
Lockheed built a total of 130 Lockheed 12s, ending production in 1941. With the arrival of World War II, Lockheed concentrated its production efforts on more advanced military aircraft, such as the Hudson bomber and the P-38 Lightning twin-engined fighter. The Lockheed 12's market was left to the Beechcraft Model 18, thousands of which would eventually be produced. Some Lockheed 12s have survived today, mostly in private hands. Several of these are still flying.
