The airport of Auburn-Lewiston isn't exactly easy to find, it is quite unsatisfactorily signposted, but with some directions we got there. The reason for my visit was to see what progress had been made concerning Lufthansa's Starliner Project.

Germany's flag-carrier Lufthansa has a Historic Flight (flying a perfectly restored Junkers Ju.52) and intends to extend its classic airliner collection with a Lockheed L.1649A Starliner. An ambitious project.
The intention is to restore a Lockheed L.1649A Starliner to airworthy condition, after having acquired 3 of the type at a bankruptcy auction in the USA on 18Dec07.
Two of the aircraft, registered N7316C and N8083H, were originally delivered to Trans World Airlines (TWA) in 1957-58 and were stored at Auburn-Lewiston Airport in Maine. The third, N974R, was put into service with Lufthansa as a 'Super Star' in 1957 and is currently on display at the Fantasy of Flight Museum in Polk City, Florida.

N7316C has been hand-picked to be made airworthy, using parts of N8083H and N974R (many parts will have to be newly manufactured).

It is almost like working from scratch, in fact probably even more difficult than building a new airplane.
But when operational, Lufthansa will have a 'looker' and gained huge prestige!

Ralph Pettersen wrote a detailed and highly informative article about these Starliners and this project, published in Propliner magazine No.120 ('Autumn 2009').

Keep informed by updates at Ralph's website www.conniesurvivors.com

And updates on Lufthansa´s website:
www.dlbs.de/en/Projects/Lockheed-Superstar/News.php

N8083H (c/n 1038) saw parts removed for possible use in this restoration project and is also used as a reference for the engineers, for when they need to have a look of how things should look like.
The ultimate fate of this aircraft is as yet undecided, while former D-ALAN (N974R, c/n 1040) should remain preserved at Kermit Weeks's Fantasy of Flight in Florida, externally as complete as possible. Ownership of N974R will be transferred to the museum.

In Sep.2018 I came across a post on Facebook, showing N8083H resprayed in TWA colours, awaiting disassembly and transport to New York's JFK airport, destined to become a decoration in a new terminal.

After my visit to the Lufthansa restoration project of the Lockheed Starliner, in Auburn (Maine,USA) I received these photos showing the scaffolding (and other safety measures) put in place around the aircraft.

Follow updates on Lufthansa´s website:
www.dlbs.de/en/Projects/Lockheed-Superstar/News.php

LUFTHANSA'S LOCKHEED SUPER STAR PROJECT REVISITED - AUBURN,ME 29SEP2011

UPDATE (may 2014): A first test flight is expected by end-2014 and first service in 2015.
It will have 32 seats.

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Report: Constellation Restoration Nearing Completion
 
AVwebFlash - February 2, 2015

A Lockheed Super Star Constellation, one of only 44 ever built, is expected to roll out of a hangar in Auburn, Maine sometime this year, after a seven-year restoration effort, the Boston Globe reported this week. The airplane, built in 1957, was bought at auction in December 2007 by a non-profit arm of the Lufthansa airline and reportedly up to $60 million so far has been spent on the project. The airline intends to fly the finished airplane to Europe, where it will be used for "very special flight experiences for passengers, comparable to those in the golden days of aviation," a spokesman told the Globe.
 
"They are going all out on this," said Ray Anderson, owner of Anderson Airmotive in Idaho, which is overhauling the engines. "There's never been anything like it and probably never will be anything like it."
 
The airplane, known as The Star of Tigris, was built for TWA, according to www.conniesurvivors.com. It was later converted to a freighter and flew for Alaska Airlines, then changed hands several times before it was abandoned at Stewart Airport in New York in 1976. Maine Coast Airways bought the airplane and flew it to Auburn-Lewiston Airport in 1983. Restoration efforts continued at a slow pace until the airplane, along with two others used for parts, was sold to Lufthansa for $745,000.
 
The new owners built a 50,000-square-foot hangar at Auburn for the restoration, at a cost of $3 million. About 95 percent of the fuselage skin has been replaced, according to the Globe, and 120 workers are dedicated to the project, working seven days a week. The owners disputed the Globe's estimate of $60 million spent, but declined to provide an accurate figure.
 
More than 800 Constellations in total were built before the airlines made the switch to jets. The Super Star Constellation, also known as the "Starliner," which entered service in 1951, was "a plane ahead of its time," according to Lockheed Martin. It featured air conditioning and reclining seats and was twice as fuel-efficient as the early passenger jets. At least two others are still flying (one in Switzerland and one in Australia) and several other restoration projects are under way. The last Constellation was built in 1959.

An update I read in Air Classics (april 2016) by Ralph M Pettersen provided a few more details as well a postponed redelivery...
It looked like 2015 could have been the year of a first flight after restoration, but this was not to be.
Unforeseen problems (slow delivery of parts from subcontractors and a significant design change involving fuselage mainframes) resulted in a reduction of the resident workforce by 50%.
Though this project is now entering its 9th year, it appears that Lufthansa is still fully committed to complete the restoration of Starliner N7316C.
Will 2016 see it go airborne ... ? Stay tuned!

Here are parts from an article in Air&Space Magazine (august 2016), by Phil Scott,  which may serve as an update-

"Bernhard Conrad, a retired chief technology officer at Lufthansa, heard about a bankruptcy auction at which the deteriorating airliner, as well as two other Starliners, would be put up for sale.
Conrad is the chairman of the Deutsche Lufthansa Berlin Foundation, which is flying or restoring five other examples of vintage airliner types that were once part of the Lufthansa fleet, including a Junkers Ju 52. "We didn't have anything in our fleet that represents the early era after World War II," says Conrad. "And Lufthansa was interested because the Starliner was the airplane that established our first nonstop international service." Conrad wanted to bid on all three Starliners, with the goal of restoring one to airworthiness and using the remaining two for parts.
In December 2007, he and his attorney traveled from Germany to Maine and put down $745,000, winning the three aircraft.

In June 1957, Lockheed delivered 'Star of Tigris', registered as N7316C, to TWA. The aircraft flew its last passenger flight for TWA on 09Sep1960. Tigris was then converted to a cargo transport, and six weeks later it returned to service at TWA as a freighter. Lockheed had stopped manufacturing Starliners two years earlier.
N7316C will be restored as a passenger carrier, modeled after the Starliners Lufthansa operated in the 1950s.

The restoration crew began by taking the airframe apart and inspecting each piece. "You find a lot of things that need to be overhauled," says Pakszies. "A lot of metal is corroded, and some companies can provide old parts, but you can't buy everything. We manufactured a lot of things new from the old drawings."
Part of the nose landing gear was salvageable, but the original magnesium wheels were no longer available. The restoration crew soon discovered that wheels from a modern Airbus A320 work famously. The cockpit instrument panel also needed to be replaced because the original one couldn't accommodate all of the instruments now required.
The seats, 44 of them, are the same ones used on the Airbus A300, but they have been refurbished and reshaped to fit into a Starliner cabin. New airliners also require inflatable slides that can sprout from emergency exits (instead of the Constellation's original rope escape system). One emergency slide is hidden under the airliner's rear bar countertop.
The outlook in 2016 is that another year and a half will be needed.
About 95 percent of all the structural elements on the fuselage, the wings, the horizontal stabilizer-it is all new. The majority by hand!

'The Star of Tigris' is expected to be ready for test flights by the end of 2017 and for paying passengers in early 2018.
The airplane will be fully certified to the transport aircraft category, it is not limited by an experimental certification."

Nice 2016 article about the Starliner project:
http://lockheedmartin.com/us/news/features/2016/C1ReturnofSuperStar.html

"... Also, the C-130J program and P-3 program have also assisted the Starliner restoration. When Lufthansa needed a main landing gear component redesigned, Lockheed Martin engineers from those programs, were able to model the new part, analyze the structural requirements, and provide the computer model to the manufacturer to fabricate the part. This high level of technical competence allowed Lufthansa to get the engineering change approved through the FAA with minimal project impact.

The Lufthansa Super Star restoration is a huge project – to the level of removing the cargo doors and reinstalling passenger doors, examining every fastener and rivet, and installing a modern cockpit – still has obstacles to overcome on the long journey back into the air. But the aircraft is now coming together and this classic beauty will soon fly again."

Written by Stefan Oestreicher. Stefan is a design engineer in the Aviation Safety & Airworthiness group at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics in Marietta, Georgia

Follow it here superstar.lufthansa.com/en/a-new-super-star

From: www.sunjournal.com/news/lewiston-auburn/2017/08/14/...
"Fire-suppression error sends foam pouring out of Auburn-Lewiston Municipal Airport hangar...!"
Also: www.pressherald.com/2017/08/14/..

In 2018 Lufthansa came with shocking news:
As of 2017, the Starliner project was about 85% complete. Itwas expected to fly again by end-2018 or early-2019 (but this 'first flight after restoration' has been delayed many time).
When completed it would be the only surviving example of the Lockheed L-1649 Super Constellation in existence.
For nearly 10 years, aviation professionals and enthusiasts, and former and future passengers, have accompanied the prosperity of this project, eagerly awaiting the maiden flight of, what has been referred to as, the most beautiful passenger aircraft ever built.
On 15Mar2018, an article in the Lewiston-Auburn Newspaper 'Sun Journal' announced that the project in Auburn
would be shutdown...
Lufthansa Technik wants to separate the wings from the fuselage, box up all of the parts and ship everything to Germany.
This is probably sound economics, to continue the restoration in Germany, as that facility must be costly. But the wings have to be disassembled again and there is fear that the fuselage will not stand the structural forces of transport and end the restoration to airworthiness.
After all the money and effort Lufthansa has sunk into this project, that would be so disappointing.

leehamnews.com/2018/06/04/pontifications-lufthansa-is-sabotaging-history/ ¬June 4, 2018, © Leeham News; by Scott Hamilton.
'Lufthansa Airlines is sabotaging history and its own airplane restoration project. Lufthansa is pulling the plug.
Despite media inquiries and questions from leaders of the project, Lufthansa hasn’t said why it is shutting down the effort to create an airworthy airplane.
The plane has been partially disassembled. The wings are scheduled to come off the week of June 24. And if this tricky operation weren’t dangerous enough for a restoration project, Lufthansa apparently told the work crew to keep no records. This kills any prospect of becoming airworthy.'