Category From props to jets

(1946-1950)

(1946-1950)

Flagship Knoxville, an American Airlines Douglas DC-3 in 1939. (Craig Kodera/The Greenwich Workshop)

 

A

fter World War II ended, the world entered an era of recovery and rebuilding. Commercial air trans­portation began to expand using fleets of surplus military transports and leftover prewar passenger aircraft. Despite
there being a number of false hopes with giant new air­liner concepts that never came to fruition, the promise of bigger and better airliners was looming on the distant horizon. Maybe someday, there would even be jets.

Evolution of Post-World War II Airliners—

USAAF Surplus

The end of World War II saw a massive transfer of aircraft to the airline industry, mostly Douglas C-47s reconfigured to passenger layouts. In addition to civil DC-3s returning from military service, more than 9,000 C-47s were available to choose from, at prices less than $10,000 each.

In addition, 1,100 Douglas DC-4s, built as C-54s for the Army and R5Ds for the Navy, became available and were purchased by airlines in large numbers. American Airlines acquired 50 C-54s at the standard government price of $90,000 each, and spent an addi­tional $175,000 per airplane to install passenger interi­ors. Pan Am, which had ordered DC-4s in 1940, went on to fly 90 of the type, while other carriers purchased smaller numbers.

Powered by four Pratt & Whitney R-2000 engines, the DC-4 rumbled along at a maximum speed of 227 mph and possessed near-transatlantic range, but was chiefly used on shorter domestic routes, carrying 44 passengers in a standard configuration, plus two pilots and one or two flight attendants. In addition to American, surplus DC-4s were acquired early on by Delta, Eastern, Northwest, Pan Am, TWA, and United.

Подпись: A crowd gathers around this TWA-painted Constellation after its record-breaking, 6-hour 58-minute flight from Burbank to National Airport in Washington, D.C., on April 17, 1944, with Howard Hughes and Jack Frye at the controls. Although it was scheduled for handover to the War Department, Hughes was allowed the airplane for the cross-country flight and, without permission, had his airline's colors applied to complete the publicity coup. The loading steps, made of wood, were specially constructed and painted for the event. This would be the only Constellation to wear Transcontinental Line markings, and it never flew in revenue service with TWA. (TWA/Jon Proctor Collection)

Подпись: In 1948, LaGuardia Airport in Queens, New York, drew thousands of weekend onlookers with its panoramic observation deck. (Peter Black Collection)

As the war ended, Douglas built a small batch of civil DC-4s before concentrating on production of its new DC-6, which airlines would begin receiving in

Подпись: April 16, 1944, Las Vegas, Nevada. TWA Treasurer John Lockhart, acting on behalf of the U.S. Army Air Force, accepts the flight manual and paperwork as the first Lockheed Constellation is turned over to the airline. A variation of the Constellation logo, with added stars, is visible on the Connie, along with a tailskid that was only fitted on the first few airplanes. Wearing military registration 310310, the airplane was immediately flown back to Burbank and prepared for its record-breaking flight to Washington, D.C., the following day. Note boarding ladder. (Craig Kodera Collection) Подпись: A Pan American World Airways Stratocruiser; its landing gear already retracting into the wells, departs from Los Angeles on June 23, 1950, bound for Honolulu. At the west end of Runways 25-Left and -Right, traffic on bordering Sepulveda Boulevard was stopped for long-range takeoffs in the days before a tunnel was built under the runways to allow extension of the strips. The Stratocruiser remains to this day the most successful adaptation of a military transport (the C-97) into a luxury airliner. (Los Angeles World Airports)

1947. Western Air Lines was a factory-delivery DC-4 customer. At Burbank, California, Lockheed began producing civil variants of its Constellation after divert­ing the type to the military during the war. C-69 Constellations were handed over to TWA and Pan Am, both hungry to replenish their small fleets and add capacity as postwar prosperity began rapid growth in air travel.

On U. S. domestic routes, TWA gained a significant advantage over its domestic rivals, as even the ex-military Connies were on a par with the DC-6s yet to arrive. Fifteen of these larger, more-modern airliners required less modification work than the C-54s and had the advantage of pressurized cabins that allowed them to cruise at higher altitudes to avoid bad weather. Eighteen-cylinder, Wright Cyclone R-3350 radial engines permitted cruising altitudes of 21,000 feet. Accommodations for up to 57 passengers were provided on daylight flights, with sleeping berths added for longer night and transatlantic flights.

The type was used to inaugurate TWA’s transat­lantic service in February 1946 and quickly spread to domestic routes as well, supplementing five four-engine Boeing 307 Stratoliners that were returned to TWA from military duty in 1944. The C-69s were followed by civil-built Model 049 Connies. TWA also acquired 15 C-54s for transatlantic use through purchase and lease contracts.

(1952-1954)

(1952-1954)

Puddle Jumper, an American Airlines Convair 240 in 1954. (Craig Kodera)

 

T

he piston-engine airliner evolves and matures to new and impressive levels, bringing greater speed, longer range, and increased passenger capacity as well as true transcontinental travel. Aircraft performance
increases, and so does the level of operational safety and reliability. International air travel also comes of age as airline routes expand and more passengers take to the skies than ever before.

SE 210 Caravelle I, I A, and III

There can only be one “first” of anything, and for rear-engined jet airliners, the Sud-Est SE 210 Caravelle proudly holds that honor. French aircraft manufactur­ers were identified by region, Nord (North), Sud – Ouest (Southwest), or Sud-Est (Southeast). Named for the small, swift, twin-masted sixteenth-century sailing ships that also became the aircraft’s official logo, the Caravelle turned heads at the Paris Airshow when revealed to the public for the first time in 1957. However, the airplane’s genesis dates back to the late-1940s when

SE 210 Caravelle I, I A, and III

SE 210 Caravelle I, I A, and III

Although an early Constellation operator, Eastern Air Lines turned to Douglas for a 50-strong fleet of DC-7Bs, which wore several variations of the company’s colors. Two stewardesses are seen departing at the end of their duty day in December 1963 at New York’s Idlewild Airport. Also known as New York International, the airport was officially renamed for slain President John F. Kennedy on Christmas Eve day that year. (Harry Sievers)

SE 210 Caravelle I, I A, and III

The Connie’s classic lines are handsomely accentuated by wingtip fuel tanks in this overhead view taken at Kansas City. It was TWA’s first airliner to feature two classes of service, with separate entry doors for each cabin section.

(TWA/Jon Proctor Collection)

the French aircraft industry led the country back from the ruins of World War II by formulating a plan for the design and development of a new commercial airliner to be exported worldwide.

This airplane was to be a medium-size, medium – range jet transport intended to fill the apparent gap in new commercial aircraft sized just below larger, longer- range four-engine jetliner designs then on the drawing boards in England, Canada, and the United States. Initially called the X-200 and masterminded by Sud’s brilliant Chief Engineer Pierre Satre, numerous configu­rations were proposed with the tenth design, or X-210, emerging as the most likely candidate for development. This was a three-engine aircraft called the Tri-Atar, which bore a striking resemblance to another airplane that would later be known as the Boeing 727. By 1951, capitalizing on improvements in jet powerplant tech­nology, a twin-engine version of the X-210 came into focus, and the Caravelle was born.

Sporting twin Rolls-Royce Avon turbojets housed in slim nacelles mounted on the aircraft’s aft fuselage, this new jetliner looked sleek, efficient, and practical, yet stylishly modern at the same time. With the engines at the rear, the Caravelle’s slightly swept wings were left strictly to provide lift at maximum efficiency, giving the aircraft an impressive glide ratio of 19:1—the same as high-performance gliders of the time. The airplane’s landing gear was also suitably short, giving it a low
stance, and allowing full maintenance and ramp service with only a few work stands required.

Passengers enjoyed another major benefit of the rear-mounted engines: The painful roar of exhaust noise was far behind the cabin. From a safety standpoint, fuel lines and associated heat sources were located behind the cabin as well. From an aerodynamic point of view, engine thrust vectors were located much closer to the fuselage centerline than with wing-mounted engines, ensuring safer single-engine operations (should those occasions ever arise). Finally, an integral boarding stair was fitted to the lower fuselage aft of the rear pressure bulkhead, alleviating the need for cumbersome external boarding stairs at smaller airports.

To facilitate the airplane’s development, the French physically grafted the sleek bullet-shaped nose of an exist­ing jet airliner onto the forward barrel section of the Caravelle’s fuselage. That other jetliner just happened to be Britain’s de Havilland DH-106 Comet, recently grounded from a series of tragic inflight accidents (see Chapter Two). Sud purchased two complete nose sections from de Havilland and had them shipped from Hatfield, England, to Sud’s final assembly facility at Toulouse. With the exception of engine pylons and tail surfaces built by Fiat in Genoa, Italy, the rest of the Caravelle’s airframe was manufactured exclusively in France.

The first Caravelle prototype rolled out of Sud’s final assembly building on April 21, 1955, and flew

SE 210 Caravelle I, I A, and III

successfully for the first time one month later. In November of that year, the country’s national airline, Air France, placed an order for 12 Caravelles with 12 options, and the race was on. Certification flight testing was completed in March 1956, and route-proving and system-integration test flights soon began in earnest. One such flight offered a rather graphic demonstration of the aircraft’s impressive single-engine performance when the second prototype flew between Paris and Casablanca on only one engine!

After the two prototypes, the Caravelle I became the first operational aircraft sporting a З-foot fuselage stretch and a new avionics “hump” on the upper aft fuselage. Rolls-Royce Avon 522A engines provided 10,500 pounds of thrust each, and passenger capacity was established at 85 in an all-economy configuration. A slightly upgraded Caravelle 1A model was devel­oped, after which the Caravelle III became the standard, with all earlier airplanes upgraded as Ills. With a wingspan of 112 feet 6 inches and a fuselage length of 105 feet, the new jetliner was perfect for serving smaller outlying country airfields and big city airports alike.

Scandinavian Airlines System became the first airline in the Western world to inaugurate twin-engine pure-jet airliner service when it put the Caravelle III into opera­tion flying from Copenhagen, Denmark, to Beirut, Lebanon, in April 1959. Air France began its Caravelle
service on the Paris-Rome-Athens-Istanbul route the following month. Swissair and Air Algerie soon fol­lowed, flying the sleek twinjets on short – and medium- range routes throughout Europe and North Africa.

Other Caravelle III operators included Finnair, Alitalia, and Sabena in Europe, and Varig of Brazil in the Western hemisphere. A total of 111 Caravelle I, I A, and III models were built, while the total number of all Caravelles, including larger turbofan-powered versions, numbered 282 aircraft. This was the largest single pro­duction run of any European-built airliner at the time.

Overall Impact of Jet Airliners on World Travel and Commerce

Turbine-powered airliners made a huge impact on world economics almost from the day they entered rev­enue service. Now imagine doubling capacity while simultaneously halving travel times and lowering costs. Such were the rewards when modern jets and turbo­props began replacing piston-powered aircraft, some of which had been flying since the end of World War II.

Across the Atlantic, a mind-numbing 10 to 12 hours of reciprocal engine noise and vibration were replaced by less than 7 hours aboard an airplane that burned cheaper kerosene and actually allowed conver­sations inside the cabin without raising one’s voice. Flights were smooth enough for delighted passengers to marvel as they built playing card “houses” or balanced quarters on drop-down tray tables.

The timing could not have been better, with grow­ing economic prosperity on both sides of the Atlantic ready to welcome increased capacity and at lower fares. Even during the first nine months of 1959, with limited jet service, traffic was up 13 percent, while capacity rose only 5 percent. Aboard the jets, Economy class quickly replaced Tourist class, while 20 percent of customers were still flying in First class. Pan Am’s jets achieved an 86-percent load factor, which was unheard of until that time. Within a year, passenger loads on its jets jumped from 55 percent of available capacity to 80 percent.

The advent of jet travel also ended the domination of steamship travel between the United States and Europe. While some of the great ocean liners soldiered

Подпись: The Convair 880's sleek lines and elegant proportions are apparent in this predelivery photograph. TWA operated a total of 28, including one briefly leased from Northeast Airlines, making it the largest Convair jetliner operator. (Convair/Jon Proctor Collection) Подпись:

on for several years, their blue-ribbon speed records were eclipsed by the formidable combination of jet comfort and lower ticket prices. With the available speed of the jet airliner, passengers began traveling to and from Europe for long weekends, something they would have never considered after making a five-day crossing of the North Atlantic by ship, or even a 12-hour airplane ride aboard a Constellation or DC-7.

Even more amazing is what the new jets, and even turboprops, did for business travel. Prior to jet service, trips across the country and back, at minimum, required three days. Now a round trip could be com­pleted in less than two days, with the “road warrior” arriving at business meetings fresh and alert, then returning home much the same way. Airfreight was delivered expeditiously as well, diverting perishables such as fruits and vegetables to spacious jet cargo holds.

Along with passengers, aircrews completed their work more quickly, enabling much improved utilization of pilots and flight attendants. Aircraft builders employed more workers to keep up with heavy produc­
tion as airline managers all but begged for faster delivery of new airplanes. Even engine manufacturers shared in the bountiful revenues, along with the various parts manufacturers and other airline-related businesses.

State of the Industry: Rebuilding Fleets, Markets and the Boeing 377

Although surplus military transports served to boost postwar capacity, airline managers envisioned even greater growth and ordered newer, modern aircraft to meet demand and improve performance. While new DC-6s began entering the market, Lockheed upgraded its Constellation, boosting weight and range in the form of the 749 and 749A variants. These types found work in transatlantic service and to Hawaii from the West Coast.

Meanwhile, the Boeing Company utilized its mili­tary B-29 design to bring about a civil version, the Model 377 Stratocruiser, combining the bomber’s wings and an enlarged fuselage that featured sleeping berths, dressing rooms, and a lower-deck passenger compart­ment used as a lounge. Power came from four 3,500-hp Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Double Wasp turbocharged engines, by far the largest and most complicated civilian reciprocal powerplants of the time. These engines gave the 377 a service ceiling of 35,000 feet and a range of more than 4,000 miles. At 25,000 feet it could cruise at between 300 and 340 mph.

The “Strat” was first utilized on Hawaiian routes by Northwest, Pan American, and United; Pan Am also introduced the type on transatlantic flights. Within the continental United States, the larger-capacity airliners were pressed into service on medium – and long-haul routes. Curiously, all three types had transcontinental nonstop capability but, as we will learn, coast-to-coast nonstops were still several years away.

State of the Industry in 1954

By 1954, air travel had permeated the awareness of the general public. No longer only for the rich, travel­ing aboard a modern airliner was now a concept embraced by more and more of the U. S. and interna­tional populace. America’s favorite pilot, Arthur Godfrey, loved to talk about the safety and reliability of modern airliners on his TV shows, and it seemed as if every ad for a new car featured a giant silver Constellation flying gracefully overhead. When com­pared to today’s statistics, however, the percentage of people in the United States who had actually experi­enced flying aboard a commercial airliner in 1954 seems staggeringly low—only three percent, with the notice­able majority of these travelers being businessmen.

Be that as it may, people could now board a DC-7 or Super Constellation and travel across the United States in pressurized comfort at speeds of 300 mph and altitudes in excess of 20,000 feet. For regional or local service, the new and improved Convair 340 would probably be the aircraft of choice. Airlines even struc­tured their routing to combine the best of both worlds; you could fly coast-to-coast in the DC-7 and then con­nect to your final destination in the Convair. Businessmen flying on regional airlines could now leave
on their sales calls or attend that big meeting across the state in the morning, and be home easily in time for din­ner that evening.

Vacation travel abroad, although becoming more prevalent by air, was still considered something done more suitably by steamship than by airplane. This was understandable considering the number of elegant new ships taking to the oceans in 1954. The magnificent S. S. United States was breaking transatlantic speed records nearly every time she sailed, while the smaller S. S. Independence and Constitution were equally majestic. Cunard’s glorious Art Deco twins, the HMS Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth handily proved the adage “Getting there is half the fun!” The brand-new (and ill- fated) Italian Andrea Doria and her sister ship Cristoforo Colombo looked like floating art museums on the inside. Passengers didn’t mind spending the bet­ter part of a week getting to Europe from the East Coast (or to Ffawaii and Asia from the West Coast) by ship because of the sumptuous level of service.

Подпись: Supplemental carrier Transocean Air Lines flew DC-4s to the four corners of the world, both in cargo and passenger configurations, from its Oakland, California, base. TALOA was an acronym for Transocean Air Lines followed by the two-letter Oakland airport code. This operation was the spawning ground for the Ernie Gann story that led to the epic Warner Brothers motion picture, The High and the Mighty. (William T. Larkins)
When the modern propeller-driven airliner is entered into the equation of vacation travel in 1954, we see the factors of pure speed versus luxurious service being prevalent. European cities were 10 or 12 hours away from New York by airplane rather than five or six days by ship; getting there quickly was the clear priority.

Still, this time period represented the heyday of modern ocean liners, and nothing from commercial aviation could stop it. What would be required to greatly impact oceanic travel was a radical new powerplant that could propel commercial airliners to almost the speed of sound, much like Great Britain had attempted with its pioneering Comet, but with much greater range and larger passenger capacity. Although military aircraft were reaping the benefits of this new powerplant, the reality of 600-mph airliners was still many years away.

The radical new powerplant necessary to take com­mercial aviation to the next level and eradicate the com­petition for long-range travel from ocean liners was called, quite simply, the modern turbojet engine.

Tupolev Tu-104

In a new postwar era of escalating political, social, and technological competition, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was not about to be upstaged by its Western rivals when it came to the development of a jet-powered airliner. Adapting a military design for commercial passenger use had been a common theme since the first stodgy biplane transports of the 1920s, and Tupolev’s new swept-wing, twinjet Tu-16 Badger medium bomber provided the perfect airframe from which to develop Russia’s first jet airliner. This new transport would measure 121 feet long with a wingspan of 115 feet and would carry 50 passengers over routes of up to 1,800 miles. Its name would be the Tu-104.

Tupolev Tu-104

The result of a post-World War II design study to re-establish France’s proud aircraft industry the Caravelle was the world’s first jet aircraft to have its engines mounted on the rear fuselage, beginning the trend that has been adopted by numerous commercial aircraft and business jets alike. The Caravelle made its inaugural flight from Toulouse, France, in April 1955. (Mike Machat Collection)

THE FABULOUS FIFTIES

FLY ME TO THE MOON

Подпись: FL V THE FINESTПодпись: TWA Flight Schedule from July 1, 1955, seems to suggest that you could book your ticket for a TWA flight on either a Constellation from Los Angeles to New York, or a Moonliner from Los Angeles to the Moon and back! This clever marketing ploy actually established TWA as the official airline of Disneyland, which had just opened that same week. (Craig Kodera Collection)Tupolev Tu-104CC nphis is Captain Collins speaking,” says the JL reassuring baritone voice over the ship’s Public Address system. Our stewardess stands at the passenger door clad in the customary uniform of her airline, albeit a bit more futuristic. Everything bespeaks a typical passenger flight. Are we sitting onboard another TWA Constellation flight to New York? Hardly. We are comfortably seated in the passenger cabin of the Star of Polaris at Disneyland in Anaheim, California, in the fall of 1955, and this “spacecraft” is about to take us on a simulated flight to the moon!

Not just another ride at an amusement park, the TWA Moonliner in Tomorrowland acted as symbol and substance of the unlimited future world in twentieth-century America. There was absolutely no reason to believe we couldn’t some­day have revenue flights into space, just as we could most certainly count on robotically con­trolled houses and atomic flying cars in the not – to-distant years to come. Walt Disney, ever the visionary and (thankfully) the optimist, always knew to ask “why not?”

Designed by Disney Imagineer John Hench working under the tutelage of rocket scientists Wernher von Braun and Willy Ley, the 76-foot – tall “Rocket to the Moon,” as it was officially known, was actually a one-third-scale model of the real spacecraft envisioned by its creators. The rocket was clad in aluminum sheeting, just like the real thing, although it was structurally like a boiler with its steel skeleton. Early in the planning pro­cess as part of Disney’s sense of dynamic market­ing, Ralph Damon, president of TWA, was brought into the mix so that the red stripes of Trans World Airlines would be seen flying over the park. A nice touch of believability for Disney, the advertising for the airline was beyond effec­tive. After all, TWA at that time was the official air carrier of Disneyland. As an added bonus, Disney struck another deal, this time with StromBecKer Models to recreate plastic kits of several items from park rides, most notably, the Moonliner. You could purchase one of these kits only a few yards from the real thing, in what was known as Hobbyland, and the new concept of “cross marketing” was born.

Inside the attraction itself, pas­sengers with their mock boarding passes proceeded to a terminal boarding area clad with TWA sig­nage and staging. Here they viewed a TWA “agent” explaining the workings of their rocket and the trip into space using a cutaway model, plus animated films on the space­port viewing screens. All reference to dates was the year 1986. Inside the passenger compartment now, two more gigantic viewing screens, one above and one below, showed all aspects of our flight. The ever­present voice of Captain Collins, as he narrated our progress and pro­vided scientific knowledge and per­spective, reassured us that all this spaceflight business was purely rou­tine and that we would return safely to our launching port unscathed. Passengers on the ride enjoyed the earliest use of air jackhammers and moving seats to heighten the effects and impart realism to the movement and motion of the rocket. This truly was a realistic look at spaceflight, as far as thinking in 1955 went.

Подпись:Подпись: Tupolev Tu-104Coincident with this attraction, the Disney television program seen on Sunday nights featured a three – part series inspired by a multipart serial in Collier’s magazine, using live actors and plenty of animation. Titled “Man In Space,” one episode borrowed portions of the presenta­tion from the Rocket to the Moon ride at the park. In short, every­where one looked in the mid-1950s, space exploration was an integral part of our adventure through life. This tugged at the more sobering reality of flying a prop-driven air­liner to span the country, which therefore became preparatory to understanding why the future must include commercial jet transports. In the meantime, however, flying to the moon on TWA was just about the most “futuramic” thing a regular person could do.

Powered by two Mikulin AM-3 turbojets produc­ing 17,640 pounds of thrust each, the prototype Tu-104 took to the Russian skies for the first time on June 17, 1955. Because so much of Soviet development was shrouded in secrecy behind what the world called “The Iron Curtain,” the Tu-104’s first appearance at London’s Heathrow Airport in March 1956 literally caught the world off guard. While this surprise happen­stance was indeed a benchmark in heralding Russia’s presence as a world power, the Soviets upped the ante one year later by placing Sputnik, the world’s first man­made satellite, into orbit around the Earth. This single event radically changed the balance of technological power and launched the Space Race that eventually landed men on the moon and produced today’s International Space Station. (See sidebar “The Fabulous Fifties: Fly Me to the Moon,” page 71.)

By 1959, Aeroflot, Russia’s national airline, had inaugurated Tu-104 service from Moscow to a host of European cities such as London, Paris, Brussels, Prague, Amsterdam, and Copenhagen. In the mother country, Aeroflot’s Tu-104s (and improved 70-passenger Tu-104As) were plying routes between Moscow, Leningrad, and Kiev in the west, and cities as far east as

Vladivostok. International Tu-104 destinations included Cairo, Delhi, Peking, and Pyongyang, although all of the longer-range flights included inter­mediate stops.

With its cruising speed of 495 mph and passenger capacity of half the later four-engined jetliners, the hefty 160,000-pound Tu-104 will have to be judged by historians as a vital step in the development of the jet airliner rather than a groundbreaking revolutionary design that set the bar for today’s impressive jet fleets. However, those same historians would also have to note that the Tupolev Tu-104 was, in reality, the world’s first jet airliner to conduct sustained-revenue passenger operations after the loss of the de Havilland Comet Is in 1954.

Having entered service in September 1956 and fly­ing continuously until its retirement in 1981, the Tu-104 established an enviable record for safety and reliability for nearly a quarter-century. (This mark is even more impressive considering the severity of the Soviet winter environment.) In final judgment, the sleek twinjet with the distinctive glass bombardier nose section will always be remembered as the aircraft that put Soviet commercial jet operations on the world map.

Tupolev Tu-104

A commercial adaptation of the Soviet Air Force Tupolev Tu-16 Badger bomber, the Tu-104 was the Soviet Union’s first jet airliner, and entered into commercial service before either of America’s first two jetliners, the 707 and DC-8, had even flown. (Mike Machat Collection)

 

WELCOME ABOARD THE CARAVELLE

By Mike Machat

F

or some reason you can tell quite a lot about an airplane just from the way it rides while taxiing on the ground. The loping and almost floating sensation of the great Douglas propliners was decidedly differ­ent than the stiffer ground ride of the Constellation with its tall, slim nose gear for instance. But all that gave way to a more “riding-on-rails” sure-footedness when the new jets entered service. Taxiing along in the Sud Caravelle felt like the best of both worlds, as the ground-handling attributes of the low-slung jet­liner were enhanced by its rugged four-wheel-bogey main landing gear. The airplane feels well planted on the ground; much the way a wide-track luxury sedan feels at speed on a freeway or autobahn.

With its low wing and ample flap area, the Caravelle s takeoff is nothing less than regal. The air­plane’s large semi-swept wing has an “iron leading edge” (meaning no lift-enhancing leading-edge flaps or slats), yet the Caravelle handles beautifully at approach speeds and all the way down to the runway. Slotted sailplane-like spoilers also give the pilot pre­cise control for the airplane’s rate of descent without appreciably adding to or depleting its airspeed. The

Caravelle was always a favorite with its pilots, from the original “steam-powered” models, as they were affectionately called, to the more advanced version flown by United Air Lines. Passengers benefited from this new jet experience as well, with a significantly quieter cabin, thanks to the aircraft’s rear-mounted engines, and of course, those huge triangular-shaped windows placed strategically at every seat row.

WELCOME ABOARD THE CARAVELLE

Passengers board a Finnair Caravelle on a regional flight from an outlying smaller city to Helsinki, Finland. (Mike Machat)

WELCOME ABOARD THE CARAVELLEWith the original Caravelle cockpit and nose section having been literally grafted onto the fuselage from Britain’s de Havilland Comet, French engineers at Sud-Est realized that a modernization was required as the aircraft became more advanced in the early 1960s.

With United’s order for the Vl-R model, a new enlarged wind – shield and improved instrument panel lay­out was designed,

and here are the results. Cockpit visibility was nearly doubled, and cockpit ergonomics were enhanced greatly as well. Pilots the world over loved to fly the airplane. (Mike Machat)

The "Might Have Beens&quot

The sky was the limit for dreaming about giant new air­liners, with impressive experimental prototypes designed at the end of World War II. A double-decker six-engine goliath from Convair; a four-engine military transport conversion from Douglas; a sleek 450-mph whippet of an airplane from Republic, and a mammoth eight-engine “Queen of the Skies” from Great Britain all shared one thing in common: They never flew as an airliner!

Republic XR-12 Rainbow

The sleek and exotic Republic XR-12 was an air­plane well ahead of its time in 1946. Still the fastest four – engine piston-powered airplane ever flown, the XR-12 was envisioned as a long-range, high-altitude photore­connaissance aircraft capable of taking high-definition aerial photographs day or night, and developing those images onboard the aircraft while in flight. With a top speed of more than 460 mph, the XR-12 also offered unheard-of performance for the world’s leading airlines with a 44-passenger commercial version named the RC-2 Rainbow, an airplane that promised near-jet-like performance and a 4,000-mile range. Unfortunately, that promise went unfulfilled due to the cancellation of the XR-12’s military mission coupled with declining postwar airline economics.

Often mistaken for a more modern turboprop, the XR-12 was powered by four Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Twin Wasps —the same engines as Boeing’s venerable Stratocruiser. However, with its more streamlined aerodynamics and lighter overall gross weight, the XR-12 enjoyed an almost – 100-mph speed advantage. Although two military prototypes actually flew, the airliner version never got off the drawing boards despite being ordered by both American Airlines and Pan American World Airways. The cold realities of postwar economics rendered the Rainbow as being too costly at $1.25 million each, when surplus C-54s were suddenly flooding the market and being sold for $100,000 apiece. It was sadly ironic that Republic’s only activity in the airliner game was in winning a con­tract from American to refurbish and outfit its newly purchased surplus C-54s!

Although neither exists today, the two prototypes built by Republic exceeded all design specifications. The right airplane at the wrong time, the XR-12 became another of aviation’s mysterious dead ends, and a graphic example of a successful —and in this case unparalleled—aircraft not making it into series pro­duction. (Even its name was a clever play on words signaling the end of war’s storm clouds brought about with the help of the company’s Thunderbolt fighters.) Considered as Republic Chief Engineer Alexander Kartveli’s ultimate masterpiece, the Rainbow was one of the most elegant and graceful looking airplanes ever built. But for world economics and timing, it could have been a legend!

The "Might Have Beens&quot

Looking like a much more modern airplane than one designed in 1944, the magnificent Republic XR-12 long- range photo-recon prototype was in a class by itself. The RC-2 commercial version would have offered air­lines near-jet-like performance with its ability to fly 450 mph at altitudes of up to 40,000 feet. The XR-12 achieved a top speed of 471 mph—the highest speed ever attained by a multi-engine piston-powered aircraft in level flight. (Mike Machat Collection)

The "Might Have Beens&quot

• AIN AO W lOUNOI IO« G AMI lltflA WAITING I T(

 

The "Might Have Beens&quot

American Airlines, along with Pan American, placed provisional orders for the RC-2 Rainbow. This period advertise­ment gave airline passengers a glimpse into the future. (Craig Kodera Collection)

The "Might Have Beens&quot

Nicely showing the size and shape comparison of the Rainbow with its contemporaries, this chart gives a good snap­shot of the airliners of the time. From top to bottom: Lockheed Constellation, Douglas DC-6, Boeing 377 Stratocruiser, and Republic RC-2 Rainbow. (Digital artwork by Tony R. Landis)

 

Jetliners on the Distant Horizon: USAF Enters the Turbine Age

In the 1930s, there existed a dichotomy within the aeronautical engineering world that had a profound effect on future aircraft in the United States and Britain: Civilian airplanes, especially air racers (and those were mostly built by entrepreneurs in small out buildings or garages), were more aerodynamically advanced, mean­
ing faster and more maneuverable, than our frontline fighter aircraft in the military services! This differential had an enormous effect on aircraft design during the World War II era, as shapes and capabilities were forced to advance in large increments. It took several years to match and then eclipse the German design geniuses.

By the end of the war and the late 1940s, momen­tum was clearly accelerating aviation technology at a near-quantum pace. Aircraft were advancing and eclips­ing concurrent design studies by the day, not the decade. Given the notion that the United States had sur­vived the war without destruction to any of its infras­tructure, the country was leaping ahead in manufacturing and development of cutting-edge air­craft designs. In an ironic twist, the Cold War was now advancing the state of the art in aviation to favor the military airplanes rather than the civilian types. The dichotomy of the 1930s had reversed itself.

By 1954, the United States Air Force was flying large, heavy aircraft like the Boeing B-47 Stratojet at routine speeds of nearly 600 mph and altitudes exceed­ing 40,000 feet. Their range was spectacular as well, especially in the developing B-52 Stratofortress. The globe was rapidly beginning to shrink. However, the

Jetliners on the Distant Horizon: USAF Enters the Turbine Age

Boeing’s revolutionary B-47 Stratojet set the standard for Jet Age design when it first flew in 1947. Powered by six General Electric J47 turbojets and capable of being refueled in flight, the B-47 projected American aerial might dur­ing the early years of the Cold War. The big jet also gave Boeing a tremendous advantage in structural engineering and manufacturing prowess that would lead to the development of a new company-funded four-engine jet trans­port. (National Archives via Dennis R. Jenkins)

 

Jetliners on the Distant Horizon: USAF Enters the Turbine Age