Final versions of the most successful aircraft families have often enjoyed limited success, compared with earlier members. Thus while the last Spitfire variants were the fastest, most heavily armed versions of the family, and were arguably the best piston-engined fighters ever built, they were also obsolete almost as soon as they entered service, outshone by a new generation of jet-powered competitors. Lockheed's Starliner enjoyed a similar status. The most advanced member of the long-lived and highly successful Constellation family, the L-1649 was probably the finest piston-engined airliner ever built, however by the time it entered service, the jet age was already beginning and only 44 were built. The Starliner was conceived in the brief period during which the early jet engines seemed too flawed for use by long-range heavy aircraft. At much the same time, there was considerable pressure for the USAF's new Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bomber to be built as a propeller-driven aircraft. Advanced derivatives of the Super Constellation seemed likely to remain on the drawing board, until TWA asked Lockheed to develop a new version of the Constellation. This version would have increased range and capacity to compete with Pan Am's new Douglas DC-7C 'Seven Seas', which promised to be able to fly the Atlantic non-stop in almost any weather.
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