10, 1954, a BOAC Comet plunged into the Mediterranean, in good weather, shortly after takeoff from Rome. None of those accidents was blamed on the airplane itself. Three accidents marred the first year's Comet operations. The future looked bright for de Havilland, as the Comet was in service more than six years ahead of its nearest American rival. And the 78-seat, transatlantic Comet 3 was also in the works. The slightly larger, longer-range, 44-seat Comet 2 made its first flight in February 1952. Additional orders started coming in from Canada, Japan, Venezuela, and Brazil. The Boeing Model 40 was a United States mail plane that became the first. Other airlines began operating the type, as well-including two French carriers, Aeromaritime and Air France. The plan is to operate charters and perhaps scheduled flights with this. It was the dawn of the Jet Age, and passengers were effusive in their praise of the Comet's quick, quiet, smooth, vibration-free flights. The initial Comet 1 model was designed to carry 36 passengers over 1,500 miles at 35,000 feet and 500 mph-twice as high and twice as fast as most contemporary propliners.īOAC inaugurated the world's first scheduled jet service, between London and Johannesburg, on May 2, 1952. The Comet was originally built for British Overseas Airways Corp., which had placed an initial order for 14 airplanes in 1946. Early that evening, the company's chief test pilot, John Cunningham, was at the controls for the jet transport's historic maiden flight. Built in secrecy to protect de Havilland's commercial lead, the Comet was finally unveiled to the world on July 27, 1949. The appropriately named Comet was a streamlined machine with a bullet-like nose and four de Havilland jet engines buried in its swept-back wings. 106 evolved from a jet mailplane into the world's first jet airliner.
Many different approaches were studied under the leadership of the firm's chief designer, P,on Bishop-including several radical, tailless concepts. accepted the challenge of designing and building the proposed aircraft. One of the Brabazon Committee's recommendations called for a small, jet-powered, transatlantic mailplane. The Brabazon Committee recommended several advanced concepts based upon the revolutionary new gas turbine (or "turbojet") engine that Britain's Frank Whittle had pioneered. In 1943, the British government formed a committee under the chairmanship of Lord Brabazon to identify postwar civil aviation requirements. Moreover, their piston engines were costly to maintain and produced deafening noise and bone-rattling vibration. Airsickness was still a common affliction aboard unpressurized, propeller-driven airliners-forced to fly at lower altitudes through the most turbulent air. All previous airliners were uneconomical to operate, and early airlines depended on government subsidies to stay in business.īut despite its laudable economics and comfortable interior, the 21-seat DC-3 was no match for the passenger trains and ocean liners of the 1930s and 1940s. What made the DC-3 so great was its ability to earn a profit carrying only passengers. Many aviation historians regard the Douglas DC-3 as the greatest airliner ever built.
0 kommentar(er)
