Category From props to jets

Perhaps most ambitious within the Luxury Airliner category of contestants, Bristol’s Brabazon Mark One airliner was a true behemoth in all regards. The aerody­namic answer to the question of more passengers and more range was, in those days of World War II and immediately thereafter, to simply take a given, typical airplane shape along with the ratio of its parts, and inflate them. For instance, if you need more lift to carry
all that new payload, simply design a giant wing to do so. Or a bigger fuselage and tail group to handle more passengers. Fience the Brabazon was a very large air­craft in all proportions. So large, in fact, that Bristol had to lengthen the runway at its Filton works, which necessitated the destruction of an entire village in order to build on to the pavement. Also, two new production hangars were constructed to produce these giants. The wing camber was so thick and high that a man could easily walk upright through the center wing area had it been open, and each wing had a bumper on its under­side tip to absorb the inevitable runway impact during a crosswind operation.

The Type 167 was named after Lord Brabazon, an influential aeronaut cum aviation booster who chaired the committee that bore his name during World War II. That group of men laid the groundwork for all the future postwar airliners that Britain should produce, with differing specifications for differing roles. The largest airplane would be the transatlantic flag carrier. Thus, as Bristol embarked on the building of the great international airliner in March 1943, it seemed only appropriate to name it for its founding mentor.

The Brabazon had a wingspan of 229 feet, cruised with its low-speed airfoil shape at a stately 250 mph, and could carry up to 180 pampered passengers in com­partmentalized style on two separate decks. Bristol and British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) liked to compare the interior of the airplane to that of a lux­ury salon railway car, offering a lavish 200 square feet of luxury space per passenger (in the 100-passenger

configuration) so as to help them survive the inter­minably long flights across the North Atlantic. As with the other aircraft we are discussing in this section, the Brabazon was striving to be the “last word” in air travel in the late 1940s. Features included a cinema, lounge, bar, and ladies’ dressing room, not to mention impecca­ble British service.

Among the advanced features of the Brabazon, all flight controls were 100-percent hydraulically powered, and it was the first airplane to be so designed. The dual Bristol Centaurus engines per each nacelle were actually buried inside the wing, each at an angle to a central driveshaft turning contra-rotating propellers. Production aircraft, starting with the Mark Two air­
frame, were to be even more advanced powered by Proteus turboprop engines.

Putting this airplane into context, it first flew in 1949, just after the de Havilland Comet made its maiden flight. The contrast could not be more stunning, and served a harbinger of things to come for the “Brab” as BOAC lost all interest in the airplane. British European Airways (BEA) wanted to fly the one-and-only air­frame (the never-fully-completed number two aircraft was scrapped) on its service to Paris, but fatigue prob­lems associated with the propeller mountings and an overall flight time limitation of 5,000 hours scotched the idea of revenue passenger flying. By October 1953, the Mark One airframe was broken up for scrap as well.

Jolted into reality by the large Martin orders, Convair began marketing the improved Model 240A, later renamed the 340, which not only leapfrogged the 404’s attractiveness, but blunted a potential threat from Convair’s East Coast rival.

The Model 340 stretched the 240 design by 4 feet 6 inches, increasing seating capacity to 44 passengers. Its wingspan was lengthened by 13 feet 11 inches, allowing nearly double the 240’s fuel capacity, up to 1,900 gal­lons. Upgraded engines completed the package, which drew a 30-airplane order from United Air Lines, later growing to 55. The Model 340 “Cosmopolitan” enjoyed wide acceptance from the airline industry, both

United flew the largest fleet of Convair-Liners; 55 Model 340s served the carrier for more than 12 years without incurring a single passenger fatality. Mainliner Omaha awaits customers at its San Diego birthplace. (Jon Proctor)
in the United States and overseas. Supplementing the 209 civil versions built, the U. S. Navy and Air Force purchased an additional 102.

By Mike Machat

The businessman from Hartford and veteran air­line traveler boarded the stairs and stepped through the oval door of the brand-new, factory – fresh red-and-white Capital Airlines Viscount parked on the ramp at Newark Airport. Strapping into his seat, he noticed the size of the window— about twice that of the Constellations he was used to flying in, and oval as well. As the slim, four-bladed Dowty-Rotol propellers started turning, the familiar smoky, coughing engines start and piston-induced vibrations he usually felt at this moment were replaced by almost complete silence and a new smooth hum. Then the rising note of turbine whine
slowly grew into a shrieking cacophony emanating from the aircraft’s slim nacelles housing its four Rolls-Royce Darts.

Acceleration on takeoff was dazzling by compar­ison to a DC-7 or a Constellation, but with a stately 315-mph cruise speed, actual times en route were not all that different from the Viscount’s piston-powered counterparts. The flying experience itself, however, was another story, for the ride was noticeably smoother, it was quieter inside the cabin, and the trip was less fatiguing. Although not as fast or as large as the soon-to-come turboprop Electra from Lockheed and the Bristol Britannia from England, the Viscount nevertheless set the stage for the age of turbine – powered regional-service air travel.

about them, and an importance to the use of this new powerplant that changed commercial aviation forever. The turbine engine now connected Main Street in your town, to the bustling thoroughfares of big city America and beyond.

American Airlines’ Chairman C. R. Smith saw the advantage of turbofan power early on, from both an economic and a competitive point of view. In August 1958, he ordered 25 Convair Model 30 jetliners from General Dynamics for $100 million. Commercially marketed as the 600 and later renamed the 990, this follow-on version of the 880 was to be 139 feet 6 inches long with a maximum takeoff weight of 240,000 pounds and powered by General Electric CJ-805-21 “ducted fan” engines to give it a speed advantage over the Boeing and Douglas jetliners already on order. With Pratt & Whitney’s turbofan engine development run­ning 18 months behind General Electric, the new Convair jet was only offered with GE powerplants.

A distinctive design feature unique to the 990 was the appearance of four anti-shock bodies mounted on the upper trailing edge of its ultra-thin wing. Resembling large inverted canoes, these pods utilized the same new “area rule” aerodynamic technology that greatly enhanced the performance of supersonic mili­tary jets. For the 990, this served to optimize the air­craft’s lift/drag ratio at speeds above Mach.80. Additionally, these “speed pods” served as supplemen­tal fuel tanks located optimally close to the airplane’s center of gravity.

Convair engineers did a masterful job of evoking the look of speed in their new jetliner. Swept back 39 degrees at the leading edge, the 990’s wing planform

bespoke superior Jet Age performance, which became a major selling point of the airplane. With the ability to offer 635-mph Blue Streak coast-to-coast nonstop flights 45 minutes faster than the competition, American’s managers planned to configure the 990 in an all-first-class layout, with 707s to carry coach passen­gers on the plebian “slower” flights.

General Electric upgraded the existing CJ-805 design that powered the Convair 880 by adding a fan and turbine on the engine’s rear end, saving develop­ment time and allowing a higher bypass ratio. By pulling additional air around the basic engine and exhausting it at low velocity through a double-jet noz­zle, the production GE CJ-805-23 improved operating efficiency by up to 40 percent over the non-fan model, creating 16,100 pounds of thrust.

Convair executives went ahead with the 990 based solely on American’s order, which included a guaran­teed 635-mph speed and the ability to operate between New York’s LaGuardia and Chicago Midway Airports. It was a particularly bold move, especially considering the attractive purchase contract that included an inflated $22.8 million credit on the trade-in of 25 DC-7s instead of a down payment. Although launch customers normally receive generous discounts, this contract would require a long 990 production run to spread out the costs.

Additional customers proved to be elusive and Convair lost significant orders from Pan Am, Continental, and other customers. In fact, American was the only U. S. buyer, along with a handful of air­planes purchased by Swissair, Varig, and Garuda. Failure to build a prototype aircraft took a heavy toll on General Dynamics when wind tunnel tests failed to dis­close significant design problems. Fixing them nearly
resulted in an order cancellation from American Airlines. It was saved by long wait times at Boeing and Douglas and American’s need for more jet equipment. Convair granted even deeper discounts on the order and accepted cancellation of five airplanes.

In the end, the modified 990, designated the 990A, could not match its original guarantees and the type entered service with American on March 18, 1962, between New York and Chicago, but using Idlewild and O’Hare Airports; the LaGuardia and Midway plans had been long-since canceled by the type’s redesign. Instead of a single, premium-class cabin, 57 coach seats were installed, along with 42 in first class plus a four-place lounge. American’s only 990 transcontinental flights operated briefly from San Francisco to New York. Unable to complete the seg­ment against prevailing winds, the 990 flew only the eastbound segment.

Swissair ordered the airplane’s overseas version named Coronado, which beat American’s 990s into reg­ular service by nine days, and kept its fleet in operation for 12 years. Except for a three-year stint with Middle East Airlines, second-hand 990 fleets served mostly charter outfits and travel clubs for several years but were eventually taken out of service when stiffer noise rules went into effect.

Only 37 990s were built, resulting in massive finan­cial losses. Combined with the 880 shortfall, General Dynamics wrote off $425 million on the program, by far the largest loss of any corporation at the time.

de Havilland/Hawker Siddeley H. S. 121 Trident I

Although not technically a “fanjet,” the Trident still deserves mention. Having first flown in January 1962, this novel airliner provides us with a peek into the

British European Airways became the first operator for the Hawker Siddeley Trident with a 24-airplane order. The advanced tri­jet first flew on January 9, 1962. (BAE Systems)

future. It was a smaller airplane than the popular four – engine intercontinental jetliners of the time, and was quite a technologically advanced aircraft as well. Although the Trident may not have been a success when compared to other first-generation jetliners that pre­ceded it, this airplane indeed served as a harbinger of things to come.

The Trident story is fraught with frustration, for had the original 1958 design concept been frozen and heralded into production, such legendary airliners as the Boeing 727 might never have reached production. How can we make such a bold assumption? Simply stated, this aircraft was originally to be a short – to medium-range airliner powered by three Rolls-Royce RB.141 Medway “by-pass” turbojets producing 14,000 pounds of thrust each. The original Trident would have weighed between 130,000 and 150,000 pounds at take­off and carried 110 passengers over routes of up to

1,500 miles in length. (These were the approximate specifications of the Boeing 727, only five years before that aircraft entered service!)

As happens in modern industrialized societies, an insidious combination of politics and corporate wran­gling can combine to put a stranglehold on progress, and the Trident succumbed to just this type of industrial “perfect storm.” Originating manufacturer de Havilland was caught in the maelstrom of British aerospace consolidation, orchestrating a merger with Fairey and Hunting to form a new company called Airco. Combined with this series of events was the
insistence of launch customer BEA on having the new tri-jet be reduced in size, weight, and capacity to become a 107,000-pound, 80-passenger jetliner. BEA then ordered 24.

This pivotal change was enacted to make the air­plane more suitable for the specific needs of BEA at the expense of overall world market appeal, and Britain’s airliner industry never recovered from this stumble. Many months of critical timing and market advantage were squandered as design changes were contemplated and then adapted. The Airco merger became moot when de Havilland became a component of the Hawker Siddeley Group. Now powered by three 10,400-pound – thrust Rolls-Royce RB.163 Spey by-pass turbojets, the smaller Trident I finally flew for the first time on January 9, 1962, and slowly reached production and operational status by the end of 1963.

As the worlds first airliner to be certified for “zero-zero” autoland operations (precursor to today’s full Category III landing capability), the Trident dis­tinguished itself as an airplane that represented the future of commercial aviation. Although larger stretched models were subsequently produced and were ultimately successful within the small market niche, the Trident was quickly relegated to the back pages of airliner prominence. As with many other British transports, the diminutive tri-jet from Hatfield was soon outdone by stronger competitors from the United States, which once again emerged victorious in world markets.

he world of aeronautical advances is littered with unrequited aircraft and ideas which all share one aspect in common: they are the perfect machines for their moments, but seemingly unexplainably, are never allowed to come to fruition and flourish. The Avro Canada C-102 Jetliner is perhaps the most notable and melancholy of these superb aircraft underachievements.

In the new post-World War II world of 1946, Sir Roy Dobson of A. V. Roe Aircraft in the United Kingdom had a vision of England’s Commonwealth partner Canada becoming a leader in the world of aeronautics astride the North American continent. He pledged assistance and financing to the Canadian Victory Aircraft Company, who manufactured Avro aircraft under license for the war. The firm was to be of Canada and for Canada. One of the first leading-
edge projects envisioned was an intercity small – and medium-range jetliner tailored, of course, to the spec­ifications of the nation’s leading carrier, Trans-Canada Air Lines (TCA).

The original specifications called for a payload of 32 passengers, with power supplied by two Rolls – Royce axial-flow turbojet engines. However, since Rolls would not release the engine (which subse­quently became the Avon) in 1949, Avro was forced to utilize four lower-thrust Derwent centrifugal-flow engines in their final design. What Avro came up with was an outstanding airplane which met or exceeded every one of TCA’s many requirements, promising a safe, simple, and reliable airliner for medium-range work. Passenger carriage was up, as was range and performance, and the Jetliner was really becoming something special.

Being not much more than a DC-3 size airline at the time, and following the planning negotiations with Avro, it did not take long for TCA to realize it was in over its head with the Jetliner. They made it clear through many obfuscating excuses that they did not want to be the first airline in North America to fly jets, that responsibility being a bit too much for the line. Unfortunately, political considerations from Ottawa and the powerful Minster C. D. Howe, Minister of Trade (Minister of Everything, as Canadian wags called him) insisted upon keeping Trans-Canada Air Lines as an advisor to the project, and a public pronouncer on the quality of the air­plane. It was an airplane they neither wanted, nor wanted promoted, and this was just the beginning of the many sad ironies for the Jetliner.

Now that TCA was no longer the dictating force for the design of the Jetliner, Avro was finally set free to approach U. S. and European airlines. Meanwhile, the prototype aircraft had been taking shape in Malton and made its first flight on August 10, 1949. This date was a mere two weeks after the de Havilland Comet 1 made its maiden flight as the world’s first jet-powered airliner. It seemed then that the UK and Commonwealth partners were about to steal a march on the world’s airlines.

The Jetliner now could carry 40 to 50 passengers, and flight testing showed the airplane could cruise at 450 mph. The Jetliner made the rounds with the North American airlines, and the first bite for an order came from National in July 1950 and its bigger – than-life president, Ted Baker. From American Airlines engineer to Avro employee came Dixon Speas, so enamored of the Jetliner that he became Avro’s U. S. sales representative. Speas lit the fuse on the skyrocket that was Jetliner sales.

When all was said and done, the tally looked like 30 airplanes for the following carriers: National (10) and TWA (20). American, United, Swissair, and Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) were strongly leaning in the same direction. Surprisingly, the U. S. Air Force also decided it liked the Jetliner for navigator and bom­bardier training and perhaps aerial refueling, and was placing an order for 20 of the jets. As Jim Floyd, the project engineer for the Jetliner said in his wonderful book on the airplane, “The world was Avro’s oyster.”

Not happy with this tremendous success, C. D. Howe asserted himself into the process once again and forced Avro to stop working on the C-102, favoring shop space being utilized for the CF-100 interceptor. The Korean War theoretically influ­enced his decision, as did the size of the order from Avro’s largest customer, the Canadian government.

Jim Floyd, however, felt that Avro could have indeed managed both the Jetliner and CF-100 pro­grams, but such was not the case. Enter now one Howard Hughes.

One cannot overstate the role Howard Hughes played in nearly resurrecting the C-102. Hughes loved the Jetliner and wanted TWA to fly 20 to 30 of the airplanes on its routes. He worked with Convair in San Diego to license build the airplane for all cus­tomers, which meant TWA would have received their first aircraft in May 1954 (equipped with either Allison J33 or Pratt & Whitney J42 engines). The U. S. government quashed the idea after much wrangling with Hughes and Avro, disallowing Convair from utilizing any factory space for production, since the company was ramping-up for its own new intercep­tor program, the delta wing F-102.

Hughes then told Avro that he would personally finance the building of the airplane in Canada if Avro could arrange the space. When Howe discovered this, he was furious, and said “no!” in no uncertain terms. The entrepreneurial approach and gutsy leading-edge leadership of an American visionary was the last chance for the Jetliner, and all that was now extin­guished by a single bureaucrat who had nothing but antipathy from the near beginning for this wonderful airplane. After seven years of development, the Jetliner was officially dead.

Operating as a camera ship and chase aircraft for other Avro projects, the Jetliner flew on until November 1956 when time and lack of spare parts caught up with it, and the order was given to scrap the airframe. (The number two aircraft was also destroyed, having never flown and reaching only half completion when the stop order came.)

How much history Avro made with their Jetliner! An excellent airplane for the times, the C-102 could really have put Canada on the map of world-class lead­ers in aviation production and development. Don’t for­get that it was this same firm that only a few years later designed the futuristic delta twinjet CF-105 Arrow fighter/interceptor. Continuing the cruel fate of gov­ernment intervention, Avro also saw that magnificent airplane killed just as it was proving its pedigree. It seems that free markets just didn’t matter to the Canadian government in the 1950s, much to the detri­ment of air forces, airlines, and passengers worldwide.

The transition from props to jets was tumul­tuous in the early fifties. But had there been an Avro Jetliner fleet plying the routes of America’s and Europe’s airlines in dependable comfort in those transformative days, that transition would have occurred much faster and more effortlessly than it later did, with commerce and economic growth exploding nearly half a decade earlier. Now that would have been quite a world!

ver the pioneering country in aviation circles, Great Britain launches an exciting new era in commercial aviation with the world s first turbojet-powered airliner, the magnificent de Havilland Comet. With this

gleaming new mode of transportation, the future of air transport was in good hands. Unfortunately, fate and technology intervened, and triumph turned to tragedy in less than two years.

Essentially a prewar design, Boeing’s Model 377 was hatched from its military Model 367, designated the C-97 for cargo work, and KC-97 as an aerial tanker. It utilized the B-29 Superfortress wing and engines and answered Pan American Airways’ performance requirement first circulated among aircraft builders in 1941. The carrier was looking to replace its flying boats with a landplane capable of carrying a 17,500-pound payload for 5,000 miles at 375 mph.

The result was one of the most luxurious airliners of the postwar era, with a cruising speed of 340 mph, a maximum payload of 25,000 pounds, an absolute range of 4,600 miles, with a ceiling altitude of more than 33,000 feet. Its Pratt & Whitney 28-cylinder, R-4360 Wasp Major engines were the most powerful ever built for commercial use but would ultimately prove to be troublesome, as were its propellers. Pan Am placed a $25 million launch order in December 1945 for 20 airplanes.

The “Strat” first flew on July 8, 1947, and entered airline service with Pan Am on April 1, 1949, between

The mighty Model 377 Stratocruiser, Boeing’s first commercial airliner effort since the Model 307 Stratoliner, was brought about by mating the military B-50 Superfortress wings, engines, and tail planes to a twin-lobe fuselage. Though loved by passengers for its luxurious interior cabin, the Stratocruiser proved to be complicated to maintain and expensive to operate. In the end, only 56 civil versions were built. (Boeing/Jon Proctor Collection)

Until Viscount 800s began flying with Continental Airlines on May 28, 1958, turboprop airliner service

within the United States was limited to points east of the Mississippi River, where Viscount 700s flew in the colors of Capital Airlines, which assured the type’s suc­cess with a massive order for 60 airplanes. From north of the border, Trans-Canada Air Lines brought its Viscounts into airports at Boston, New York, Detroit, Chicago, and Seattle.

Based at Boston, quasi-regional-carrier Northeast Airlines took a small fleet of 10 Viscount 700s in lieu of a failed Bristol Britannia order, and enjoyed competitive

success with the type on shorter segments, including the dense Boston-New York-Washington commuter run. This then was the immediate Jet Age effect that the turboprop had on routes and passengers wherever the airplanes flew.

Its capacity on a par with the Convair 340 and 440, the Viscount distinguished itself with its speed and qui­eter interior noise level, while at airports its shrill whine was a familiar nuisance. Like the Capital, Northeast, and Trans-Canada turboprops, Continental’s larger, 56-seat Viscount II was all-first-class configured and advertised as “First in the West with Jet Power Flights,” operating between Chicago and Los Angeles with stops at Kansas City and/or Denver beginning May 28, 1958. Meanwhile, Club Coach DC-7Bs han­dled the Chicago-Los Angeles nonstops until Boeing 707s replaced the type in 1959. Viscount II service was later expanded to routes in Texas and across the south­western tier of states.

The Fairchild-built F-27 started flying with West Coast Airlines in September 1958, marking the world’s first revenue Friendship service. The type was an ideal candidate in the growing local-service-carrier arena, but West Coast continued to operate DC-3s in smaller mar­kets until the carrier became part of Air West in 1968.

Bonanza Air Lines began transitioning to turbo­prop service on March 25, 1959, when its first three F-27A Silver Darts began revenue flying. Barely 19 months later, the carrier retired its last DC-3 and claimed credit as America’s first all-jet-powered airline, growing the fleet to 16 airplanes.

Close behind, San Francisco-based Pacific Air Lines began flying F-27As up and down the West Coast on May 1, eventually operating an even dozen of the turboprops. The airline began further expansion with

Legendary Lockheed test pilot Herman "Fish" Salmon (wearing the orange flightsuit) and other Lockheed person­nel discuss a just-completed test flight with the Allison Engine Division Electra at Burbank in July 1958. (Lockheed via Mike Machat Collection)

second-hand Martin 404s about the same time. Together, the two variants permitted phase-out of Pacific’s DC-3s, which soldiered on until 1964.

In the eastern United States, Piedmont Airlines began upgrading with F-27s on November 14, 1958, growing its new turboprop fleet to eight. As with Pacific, Piedmont acquired used Martin 404s as well. Seventeen were purchased from TWA to replace DC-3s and came on board three years after the Fairchilds.

The first of seven F-27s for Midwestern operator Ozark Air Lines rolled off the Ffagerstown, Maryland, factory assembly line July 16, 1959, and was delivered only 11 days later. But the type did not begin earning revenue for Ozark until the following January. The car­rier also flew seven Convair 240s in the early 1960s, then Martin 404s. Like most of the local-service carri­ers, Ozark continued to operate DC-3s well after the turboprops arrived and finally withdrew them for good in October 1968.

In Alaska, Northern Consolidated Airlines (NCA) and Wien Alaska F-27s transported freight and hearty passengers to small towns in the Last Frontier. NCA took advantage of the F-27B’s large cargo door to accommodate bulkier freight, while Wien operated F-27As. In Hawaii, Aloha Airlines operated the origi­nal model between Honolulu and island destinations.

Allegheny also operated F-27s but did not receive the type until the end of 1965. By then, carriers were looking to the stretched FH-227 model.

While the F-27 was ideally suited for local-service – carrier routes, the Lockheed 188 Electra became the turboprop of choice for trunk carriers, designed for short- to medium-haul segments while jets were assigned to longer legs. The Electra comfortably seated around 68 customers in four-abreast, first-class layouts plus a spacious, six-seat aft lounge.

On January 12, 1959, the first of 40 Electras began revenue service in the colors of Eastern Air Lines. These all-first-class Golden Falcon turboprops initially seated 66 and operated the carrier’s principal routes on the East Coast, spreading their wings to points as far west as San Antonio. It would be a full year before the type was superseded by Douglas DC-8-2 Is and began con­centrating on shorter routes.

American Airlines Electra Flagships would have beaten Eastern’s into service were it not for a 22-day pilot strike that began on December 19, 1958. American considered placing the type into service on transconti­nental nonstops for a short time while awaiting its first 707s, but the strike scotched that plan and revenue Electra flights began on January 23, 1959, between New York and Chicago, just two days ahead of the first 707 service. Seating capacity was 68, ideal for high-frequency service between Chicago and the East Coast, replacing DC-6 and DC-7 Flagships. The type was only sched­uled as far west as El Paso. American bought 35 Electras, with an eye toward 25 more, but instead chose additional Boeing jets.

National Airlines, the first carrier to order Electras, took 14 from the factory and later 3 from American Airlines. Configured with 54 first-class and 18 coach seats, the turboprops entered service on April 23, 1959, on the New York-to-Miami route. They became National’s workhorse across the route system until the arrival of the airline’s first DC-8s in 1960, even serving on longer flights to the West Coast when the routes were awarded to National in 1961.

Dallas-based Braniff International Airways pur­chased 10 Electras, placing its first into service on June 15, 1959, and the type quickly began appearing at most of the airline’s North American destinations. Although sold as first-class service, the 188s featured a 70-seat, alternating four – and five-abreast, arrangement.

Advertised as “a totally new dimension in jet-age travel,” Western Airlines began Electra/JET service on August 1, 1959, between the West Coast cities of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle. Two months later turboprop flights were added to Salt Lake City, Denver, and Minneapolis, as the fleet expanded to five, 66-seat, first-class-configured air­planes. Seven more Electras followed with the last delivered in 96-seat, all-coach layouts, lacking a lounge. With pure-jet service beginning a year later, the turbo­props assumed shorter segments and continued to replace Convair 240s and DC-6Bs.

Northwest was the only U. S. carrier to operate nonstop, coast-to-coast Electra flights, briefly between Seattle and New York, again while awaiting pure jets. Foregoing the aft lounge, the airline’s 188Cs were delivered in a mixed configuration featuring both Imperial first-class and Coronation coach. The first was delivered on July 19, 1959, and entered ser­vice on September 1, 1959. Medium-haul work was the norm for these 18 turboprops, which were reas­signed to even shorter routes with the delivery of more jets.

Intrastate California operator Pacific Southwest Airlines, more commonly known as PSA, found the Electra to be a perfect fit for its routes between San Diego and San Francisco, with most flights stopping at Los Angeles International or Hollywood-Burbank, where the type was built. Seating 98 passengers, including 6 in the lounge, PSA’s Electra Jets boasted a

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25-minute time between San Diego and the L. A. basin, and one hour to San Francisco. With cheap fares and frequent service, PSA thrived with this rugged airplane, its first type to be purchased new. Initially, three 188Cs replaced four DC-4s, followed by three more Electras including the prototype, refurbished after taking part in the type’s certification program.

By Mike Machat

The differences in this airplane become apparent even before you enter the cabin, for the door is shaped unlike any other in the world. Vertically straight on the left side, but tapered-in on the right, this windowless device is a marvel to behold.

Walking down the aisle to your seat, you notice the coach cabins five-across seating configuration. As with the Convair 880, it’s two on one side and three on the other —a configuration that won’t be seen in other jetliners until the Douglas DC-9 enters service in 1965. Taking your seat just aft of the wing you look out the window and can’t help but notice the 990’s sleek and curvaceous “speed pods” mounted on the wing’s inboard trailing edge. With the engines now started and whining in unison, the ground tug pushes your airplane back from the gate, and then the magic of this machine becomes readily apparent.

The somewhat firm ride while taxiing is more reminiscent of Convair’s B-58 Hustler supersonic bomber. Like driving a Ferrari in second gear, you can’t help but sense the potential performance of this airplane. Taking the runway, the captain pushes the thrust levers to their stops and nearly 65,000 pounds of thrust from four General Electric turbo­fans sends you bounding down the concrete in what feels more like a takeoff in a jet fighter. You notice the look of surprise on the faces of your fellow pas­sengers as the 990 rotates smartly and climbs at a somewhat steeper angle than that “straight-pipe” 707 you flew on last time.

With flaps and slats retracted, the 990 now climbs swiftly to its cruising altitude. Soon the wind noise from the outside air rushing by your window at more than nine-tenths the speed of sound tells you that you’re indeed flying aboard the fastest jetliner in the skies.

ur story ends in 1962 as intercontinental jetliners reach maturity, but commercial aviation contin­ued to develop for many years thereafter. Smaller “regional” jetliners, larger “wide-body” jetliners, and even supersonic jetliners all took to the skies by the end of that decade. Perhaps the most graphic change in the industry is evident in the number of American airliner manufacturers. Of the five companies building com­mercial airliners in the United States at the beginning of our story, only one remains in business today.

Although our story ends with the introduction of larger and more refined fanjet-powered airliners, the continued evolution of air travel in the Jet Age bears mention as a fitting and proper ending to this book. By the end of the twentieth century, the airline industry had transformed itself from a “higher, faster, farther”
mentality to a “less is more” frame of mind. The proud post-World War II generation who led the endless quest for greater speed, range, power, and passenger capacity gave way to a more modern group of industrial thinkers who toiled to bring less operating cost, less fuel consumption, and less noise and pollution to the world at large. By the turn of the century, the torch of progress had been passed to a new digital generation of airliner builders and operators, although their numbers were definitely fewer than before.

Former titans of the airline industry who were pilots themselves or “airplane people” as well as busi­nessmen, had also been replaced by a new breed of generic corporate leaders armed with MBAs and fiscal management skills that fit the newly homogenized cor­porate culture running rampant throughout the airline

world and the world at large. Indeed, the only constant in this beloved industry became change itself. On the airframe and engine manufacturing side of the ledger, a myriad of companies worldwide began merging into seemingly unidentifiable corporate conglomerates. By the mid-1960s, proud names like Martin and Convair were gone, and other once-untouchable companies like Douglas and Lockheed were suddenly pushed to the edge of financial oblivion.

Pummeled by manufacturing problems and produc­tion delays exacerbated by jet-engine deliveries being diverted for the rapidly growing war in Vietnam, the Douglas Aircraft Company merged in a “shotgun wed­ding” with military manufacturer McDonnell in April 1967. Lockheed, whose turboprop Electra effectively bridged the gap from props to jets, was kept afloat until the advent of its L-1011 Trijet, bolstered through the lean years only by the company’s successful military business. The biggest surprise, however, was that Boeing, once the undisputed underdog in the airliner manufacturing world, had now risen to the top of the pyramid by virtue of its undeniable success with the 707 series. This pioneering airplane sired an entire family of new jetliners, large and small, each one breaking barriers and establishing jet passenger service in new ways.

In October 1978, the Airline Deregulation Act was signed into law by then-U. S. President Jimmy Carter. This well-intentioned piece of legislation quickly turned the airline world on its proverbial ear. Although the noble intent was to lift restrictions on domestic routes and airfares, thus encouraging healthy competition, the result was rampant, unbridled route expansion, an explo­sion of new upstart carriers, and the end of many estab­lished airlines, all happening at unprecedented speed and on an unprecedented scale. The David-and-Goliath suc­cess story of tiny Southwest Airlines emerging as an industry giant was also written (although the carrier began operations in 1971), as it continued to thrive despite the challenges posed by Deregulation. However, there were many more tales of sordid failure as count­less new upstarts tried to emulate Southwest’s unique business model with little success.

America’s domestic trunk airlines began to stumble while trying to compete on newly acquired overseas routes purchased from struggling Pan American World Airways —the same company once proudly called “The Chosen Instrument.” By the end of the century, Pan Am, along with Braniff, Eastern, National, Western, and more than 100 regional and local airlines no longer existed, having been either merged into other carriers or plunged into bankruptcy and oblivion. TWA held on valiantly but then disappeared in 2001, with pieces of the company having been purchased by American Airlines. Today, only American, United, Continental, and Delta remain as the surviving U. S. “legacy carri­ers,” with Northwest —itself an amalgamation of older airline names —being merged into Delta as this book is being written.

In the late-1970s, a grim undercurrent also began to appear on the domestic airline scene with insidious acts of violence involving commercial aircraft. The casual inflight atmosphere of friendly visits to open cockpits and captains strolling down cabin aisles personally greeting passengers came to an end. Even airport access where a young wide-eyed kid could hang on a chain – link fence or stand on a sweeping observation deck was slowly replaced by a darker “future shock” world of beeping metal detectors, barbwire fences, and alarmed terminal doors. Back in the 1950s, a sinister wave of air­liner hijackings and inflight bombings to collect passen­gers’ life insurance swept the industry, but by the 1980s, a number of U. S. airline flight-crew members had been tragically shot inflight with the resultant loss of their airplanes and all the innocent passengers onboard.

Although violent hijackings and airliner losses from terrorist bombings had occurred overseas, the first sub­tle hint of international terrorism reaching U. S. shores appeared with a deadly bombing at New York’s LaGuardia Airport Terminal at Christmastime 1975, when members of an Eastern-European political sect hid timed explosives in a public baggage locker. By the late – 1990s, both Pan Am and Air India had lost Boeing 747s to explosive devices hidden in luggage containers with the loss of all onboard. Then, on a bright, clear September morning in 2001, the unthinkable happened as a stunned world witnessed on live television hijacked operational airliners being used as terrorist weapons for the first time in history. Three were flown into buildings and one crashed short of its intended target, but after the tragedy of September 11, the airline world —and the world in general—would never be the same again.

The riches-to-rags story of Britain’s de Havilland Comet 1 has been told countless times. A sleek new air­liner powered by turbojet engines is unveiled to an expectant industry in England in 1949. By the summer of 1952, this acclaimed new jetliner is in passenger service on routes throughout Europe and Africa, and a postwar world exults in wonderment at this new technological breakthrough. The joy is short-lived, however, when in January 1954, a Comet 1 disintegrates in midair after tak­ing off from Rome and plunges into the Mediterranean Sea with the loss of all passengers and crew.

Before a curious and grieving world can even understand what happened, a second Comet 1 crashes three months later also after taking off from Rome and under the same mysterious circumstances with the loss of all on board. This was the fifth crash of a Comet in its first two years of commercial operation, and now the race is on to find the technical culprit that is destroying Britain’s newest, most modern, and most celebrated air­plane. With the second inflight breakup accident comes the immediate grounding of the type, and a loss of face and confidence in Britain’s aviation supremacy. What
kind of insidious inflight occurrence caused two of the world’s most modern jet aircraft to experience catas­trophic structural failure and literally explode in midair? Was it a bomb? Was it human error? Or was it possibly a design flaw in the aircraft itself?

After complex underwater salvage operations aided by the Royal Navy recovered major portions of the air­frames from both Rome crashes, the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) at Farnborough launched an investigation of never-before-seen proportions. The hunt began for the cause of the accidents with the reconstruction of actual aircraft wreckage on an arma­ture that indicated beyond any shadow of a doubt the airplane had indeed disintegrated in midair. Then an Italian fisherman’s net yielded the “smoking gun” that confirmed the solution to the mystery. A frame from one of the Comet’s square passenger windows found in the fisherman’s net showed that the fuselage had rup­tured from metal fatigue at a point near the corner of the window, extending upward to an equally rectangu­lar Automatic Direction Finder (ADF) antenna housing on the top of the fuselage. The rupture caused an explo­sive decompression of the cabin, leading to immediate catastrophic structural failure of the rest of the airframe.

In historical hindsight, this fact would seem to indi­cate that de Havilland had not tested its new airplane sufficiently, but nothing could be further from the truth. Knowing full well this airliner would be operat­ing at speeds and altitudes twice that of existing piston – powered aircraft, de Havilland engineers proceeded with fatigue testing of every minute facet of the Comet’s design and construction. With untiring effort, struc­tures were put to the test where engineers attempted to duplicate the rigors of countless aircraft “cycles,” that is the series of structural loads resulting from a takeoff, climb to altitude, descent from altitude, and landing. Exhaustive testing at Hatfield simulated an aircraft ser­vice ceiling of 40,000 feet. What couldn’t be duplicated, however, were the severe temperature differentials from sea level to 40,000 feet, and as a result of these accidents, new methods of load simulation were devised at Farnborough for use on future aircraft designs.

With a complete Comet fuselage immersed in a giant tank of water to simulate pressurization forces on the cabin at altitude, patterns now began to emerge that led to the possibility of metal fatigue in the outer skin of the fuselage. When the test cabin itself ruptured inside the water tank, the pattern of metal fatigue was conclusively established. Further study and matching of wreckage fragments from the first Comet lost revealed that the explosive decompression forces were so great that dark blue-black paint from the letter “C” in the BOAC title above the windows was found in a deep gouge on the leading edge of the right wing indicating violent span-wise or lateral impact. This clue graphically showed that the explosive force of the rupture was so great that it exceeded the forward velocity of the air­plane at that moment.

As with any aviation accident, tragedy yields infor­mation and knowledge so that a particular problem can be avoided in the future. In the case of the Comet, met­allurgy techniques, manufacturing methodology, and aircraft skin structural properties were modified to include an integral reinforcing framework built into the
skin itself much like “quilted” aluminum foil used in common households today. Additionally, the passenger windows on all British airliners built after these acci­dents were manufactured in the shape of an ovaloid to eliminate the smaller-radius corners from which the fatal fatigue cracks emanated on both Comets that dis­integrated.

Although the reputation of Britain’s commercial aviation industry was tarnished by the discovery of the design flaw that led to these accidents, de Havilland went back to the drawing board and developed improved and more advanced versions of the Comet which eventually reentered passenger service in 1958 and flew successfully well into the latter part of the twentieth century. But the story of the Comet deserves closer scrutiny than just the crash investigation, as this airplane represented the great hope and rebirth of Europe’s proud aviation industry rising from the ashes of World War II’s destruction, and was intended to show the world that England was once again a leader in aircraft design.

Evolving from design studies in 1944 for a small jet – powered mail airplane with a canard wing planform, the original de Havilland Comet was envisioned as a small high-speed, six-passenger transport powered by three turbojets buried in the aircraft’s tail section. As further marketing studies clearly indicated the need for a larger – capacity aircraft, the DH-106 emerged as the final con­figuration, featuring four 5,000-pound-thrust de Havilland Ghost turbojet engines buried inside the wing root with a slightly swept wing and conventional straight tailplanes. This new aircraft would carry 44 passengers at speeds of 490 mph on route segments of up to 1,500 miles. With its bare metal skin gleaming in the hazy summer sunshine, the formerly secret jetliner was rolled out of the factory hangar on July 27, 1949.

First flown at Hatfield later that very same day by de Havilland’s Chief Test Pilot, John Cunningham, the Comet wowed all observers although most of the crowd, including the British Press, had already gone

home thinking the flight would be scrubbed due to typically inclement British weather. As word spread of this new airplanes successful and impressive flight tri­als, the traveling public began to anticipate a sense of futurism at the thought of being able to actually fly around the world in a jet-powered commercial airliner. Such an expectation was especially pervasive consider­ing that only the Canadians had a competing design with their smaller Avro Jetliner, and that the American aviation industry didn’t even have an airplane on the drawing boards to seriously compete for the Comet’s pride of place.

Ordered initially by BOAC, the Comet 1 soon began to attract the attention of other world airlines, and tentative orders followed from Aeromaritime, Air France, Canadian Pacific, the Royal Canadian Air Force, and Britain’s Royal Air Force. With the promise of even larger and longer-range Comet versions, Pan American World Airways and Capital Airlines in the United States proudly added their names to de Havilland’s order book. By the time BOAC’s first Comet 1 entered passenger service on the London-South Africa route on May 2, 1952 (via Rome, Cairo, and points south), the airplane was firmly expected to be a world beater, bringing deluxe passen­
ger service and significantly reduced travel times to routes emanating from Europe, and eventually other continents as well.

To put the Comet’s operational service into per­spective, simply read about the other airliners flying at this same time. In 1954, Lockheed Constellations along with the Douglas DC-6 and DC-7 were the pressurized “queens of the skies” throughout the world, offering new levels of passenger comfort, speed, and range to the world’s airlines. This was especially true when com­pared to the unpressurized 200-mph Douglas DC-4s that entered service immediately following the war. With the Comet, the world had a brand-new airliner capable of more than doubling all of these operational parameters in the same time period.

By the beginning of 1954, BOAC’s Comet routes had expanded to include the Middle East, India, Singapore, and Japan. As was inevitable with any new paradigm, however, accidents began to occur that, in all fairness, could have happened with any aircraft. On October 26, 1952, a Comet was damaged after stalling on takeoff in Rome. On March 2, 1953, another Comet was destroyed while taking off from Karachi, and then on May 2, 1953, a third Comet was lost in a raging thunderstorm near Calcutta. These accidents did not go

unnoticed, but when Comet G-ALYP mysteriously fell from the sky near Alba, Italy, on January 10, 1954, the world took special notice. BOAC temporarily grounded all of its Comets until it was determined that what had occurred was strictly a one-time happenstance, and the type was returned to service on March 23. Then, only two weeks later on April 8, Comet G-ALYY repeated the Alba tragedy, and the Comet Is brief but supreme reign was over.

eliable coast-to-coast nonstop flights could, the­oretically, have begun with the introduction of DC-4s and Constellations following the end of World War II. In fact, TWA operated one “scheduled” Los Angeles to New York nonstop on February 3, 1948, when a fierce winter storm covered the Midwest. Flight 12’s regular Kansas City and Chicago stops were canceled and the Model 049 Connie covered the 2,470-mile flight in 6 hours 55 minutes.

While air travel began its rapid growth during this time period, the number of transcontinental tick­ets probably did not justify such flights. Although the market was sufficient by the early 1950s, and aircraft could stretch their legs across the country nonstop, they did not. Why?

In his book, Howard Hughes and TWA, Robert W. Rummel wrote that the airline’s traffic managers argued against the longer flights, based on their
belief that passengers wanted an en-route stop to get out and stretch their legs, and that no one wanted to fly nonstop across North America for up to nine hours. Perhaps a more important reason was that pilot contracts and U. S. federal air regulations pro­hibited flights of more than eight hours without an augmented crew, which would also result in addi­tional costs to the airline. TWA operated its transat­lantic flights this way as a matter of expediency, but not on long domestic routes where crew changes could be easily carried out.

When American Airlines announced plans to begin coast-to-coast nonstop service with its new DC-7s, TWA quickly inaugurated its own nonstop service and upstaged the competition. On October 19,1953, “Ambassador” Flight 2, an overnight service from Los Angeles to New York-Idlewild, operated with the Model 1049 Super Constellation, which could barely cover the distance in less than eight hours; it was scheduled for 7 hours 55 minutes. Prevailing winds would not permit a westbound flight within the time constraint, so a 15-minute stop was made at Chicago for a crew change with no local traffic allowed!

Not to be upstaged, American Airlines quickly retaliated with DC-7 “Nonstop Mercury” flights in both directions, on November 29. Although the Douglas was faster than the Super Connie, and flew an eastbound 7-hour 15-minute schedule, it could not
reliably operate its under-eight-hour westbound time frame, a fact quickly pointed out by American’s pilot union but quietly ignored by federal officials. More than a dozen modifications were carried out in an effort to squeeze extra speed from the DC-7’s R-3350 engines, but this was not enough to resolve the dilemma.

Then, early in 1954, government restrictions were lifted to make transcontinental nonstops in excess of eight hours “legal,” and American revised its west­bound schedule to 8 hours 15 minutes. While TWA and its pilots reached agreement on overtime for duty in excess of eight hours and began nonstops in both directions, American and its crews deadlocked over the work rules. The entire pilot workforce walked out on July 31, 1954.

The company’s legendary president, C. R. Smith, on military leave at the time, returned infuriated about the work stoppage. He quickly reached an agreement with the pilots that called for extra pay on flights —on DC-7s only—exceeding eight hours, end­ing a 24-day strike. TWA retained a bit of an advan­tage with eight sleeping berths available on its Super Connies, unlike the DC-7’s standard “day plane” configurations, but both carriers offered lounges and lavish meal service. United Air Lines, which received its first DC-7s six months behind American Airlines, launched nonstops from San Francisco to New York —again eastbound only —on June 1, 1954; west­bound flights began nearly a year later.

San Francisco and Honolulu. Its furnishings included provisions for 28 upper – and lower-bunk berths. In a day configuration, the airplane could accommodate up to 103 passengers, and featured a unique 14-passenger lounge located below the main cabin. Only 56 Stratocruisers were built, for Pan Am (21, including the prototype), Northwest (10), American Overseas (8), BOAC (10), and United (7). Northwest was the last of the original customers to withdraw the type, on September 15, 1960.

Unlike surplus DC-3s and DC-4s, used Stratocruisers were difficult to place with second-tier operators. Knowing this, the type’s original owners traded them in to aircraft manufacturers as down pay­ments on jet equipment. Transocean Air Lines, then the largest non-scheduled airline, bought 14 Stratocruisers that Boeing acquired in this fashion. Barely two years later, the airline went bankrupt and its Strats were sold
at auction with only four in flyable condition. A few other short-lived attempts were made to utilize second­hand examples, but did not succeed.

The only long-term success realized with second­hand Stratocruisers came in the form of Aero Spacelines’ radical modification to the airframe that resulted in the “Pregnant Guppy,” with an enlarged fuselage capable of ferrying oversize cargo. On the mil­itary side, the Israeli Air Force picked up five ex-Pan Am 377s for use as freighters, two of which were con­verted to swing-tail configurations.

Although Boeing could not claim great success from its civil Stratocruiser version, it prospered from the construction of 888 C-97/KC-97 military variants. But Stratocruiser production was important in allowing the manufacturer to keep its hand in the civilian airliner market, which it would begin dominating in the 1960s, with its revolutionary turbojet 707 series.

Boeing, primarily a builder of bombers and transports, designs a brand-new prototype that will change the heady game of airliner manufacturing forever. Developed to become a high-speed tanker for the Air Forces emerg­

ing fleet of new jet aircraft, this four-engine transport becomes an obvious candidate for airline service as well. The public begins to embrace the concept of air travel by jet, and the revolutionary Boeing 707 is born.