Category From props to jets

Meanwhile, over in Burbank, the folks at Lockheed were crafting their own “perfect” airliner of the times, known as the 1049 G Super Constellation, or simply, Super-G.

When one thinks of the Connie, one of the strongest details associated with any airplane comes to mind remembering the G model’s optional and removable wingtip tanks. Lockheed certainly had a penchant for these types of auxiliary fuel tanks, and the Super-G was the best application of this technology ever used on a passenger airplane. Combined with a radar nose and the stretched fuselage of the earlier 1049, the Super-G pack­age was by far the quintessential Constellation in terms of both style and practical design.

The G model’s gross weight climbed to 137,500 pounds, which included 609 gallons of fuel housed in each of the wing tanks. Range, even at this weight, was a few hundred miles more than the DC-7B, giving the Connie a small leg up on its Douglas competition. The amount of fuel carried in the G airplane was an amazing two-thirds again as much as the original Model 49 from just 10 years prior. This is the type of refinement of

Toward the end of its working life, an American Airlines DC-7B arrives at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, shortly before sunset on December 29, 1960. Boeing 707s and 720s were already quickly replacing Douglas propliners across America’s system. (Jon Proctor)

Щ

3u Appmiatum

Certificate provided to Eastern passen­gers during the DC-7B’s first year of service stated, "In appreciation and recognition of your flight on Eastern Air Lines’ new DC-7B luxury airliner, the ‘Golden Falcon.’" (Mike Machat Collection)

design and growth-of-concept that we have referred to, and the manufacturers had really hit their strides with both the 1049G and DC-7B.

A total of 102 1049Gs were produced, with more than half being delivered to overseas carriers such as

KLM and Air France. In January 1955, Northwest Orient Airlines began transpacific service using G mod­els to fly to Tokyo from Seattle via Honolulu and later, to Anchorage over the great circle route. On the other side of the globe, Lufthansa was having marvelous suc­cess with “The Senator Service” with its twice-weekly flights to the United States. Lufthansa configured its Super-Gs in a deluxe 32-seat cabin layout and this ser­vice was later extended to the airline’s South American routes. For air passengers, this was undoubtedly the best time in the world to be flying aboard a new airliner from Douglas or Lockheed.

With every major step forward in aviation comes a learning curve in the form of incidents and accidents from which new aircraft design features and operational proce­dures emerge to prevent recurrences. It is an unfortunate but inevitable step in the advancement of progress during which valuable machinery and precious lives are lost, but life-saving improvements in safety and performance are the valuable results of this process. Perhaps only in retro­spect can we understand just how safe and reliable today’s modern airliners have become. Unlike in the early 1960s, it is now a rarity to have a news bulletin suddenly inter­rupt a radio or TV program blaring out that there was another major airliner crash with the loss of all onboard.

Complete with all the associated pomp and circumstance, Pan American’s first Boeing 707 service from New York to Paris prepares to receive its passen­gers at Idlewild on a rainy autumn night, October 26, 1958. Although a BOAC Comet 4 snuck under the wire two weeks earlier to beat the 707 to the punch inaugurating the world’s first transatlantic jet service, Pan Am

Saturday, October 4, 1958, saw the world’s first two jet airliners together for the very first time at New York International Airport. On the observation deck of the International Arrivals Building a crowd of nearly a thousand spectators greeted the BOAC Comet that had just flown the world’s first commercial revenue passenger service across the Atlantic in a jet transport. Not to be outdone, Pan Am’s Juan Trippe ordered one of his new 707s, in New York that day on a route-proving flight, to be parked at the adjoining gate when the Comet arrived from London. The 707 simply dwarfed the smaller British jet, its fuselage polished to a mirror finish. Excitement filled the air along with the new scent of kerosene, and the piercing jet-engine noise was simply deafening. No one in attendance really cared, however, for this was the moment that signaled the official start of the Jet Age. (Sykes Machat photos)

As the first new jets entered service in 1958 and 1959, they were flown by seasoned airline veterans con­sidered by their companies to be the “best of the best” in terms of piloting skill and ability to command a $5 million aircraft with up to 150 souls on board. New onboard systems, powerplant management, flight char­acteristics, and operating procedures had to be learned, and emergency procedures were practiced incessantly, committed to memory, and then mastered in the air. With this new breed of airliners, jet-age training and methodology was required to bring its veteran prop-era pilots up to speed. Classroom training could only go so far, however, and because full-motion simulators had not yet come into the ground training fleet, real aircraft were taken off the line and used for flight crew assimi­lation and pilot checkouts.

February 3, 1959, was a particularly black day in aviation history. On that cold winter evening, American Airlines’ first Lockheed Electra —an airplane in service for only 10 days —crashed into the upper East River while on approach to New York’s LaGuardia Airport. In Clear Lake, Iowa, that night, a chartered Beechcraft Bonanza crashed on takeoff killing rock-and-roll legend Buddy Holly and fellow rockers Ritchie Valens and “The Big Bopper.” Midway over the North Atlantic on a routine passenger flight from Paris to New York that same evening, a Pan American Boeing 707-120 experienced autopilot failure while flying at cruise altitude, causing commercial avi­ation’s first recorded “jet upset” where the airplane unexpectedly departed straight-and-level flight and plunged 29,000 feet toward the ocean.

Miraculously, the crew of the Boeing 707-120 was able to wrestle the controls and pull out of the nearly inverted dive a scant 6,000 feet above the waves, thank­fully saving all onboard including famed American dance legend, Gene Kelly. In testimony to the big Boeing’s rugged construction, the airplane held together through the ordeal, but suffered minor structural damage as a result of heavy g-loads induced during the recovery. And speaking of recovery, only three weeks later, another Pan Am 707 shed an entire engine and pylon during a minimum-control airspeed demonstration while on a training flight from Le Bourget Field in Paris. The crew managed to regain control and land at London’s Heathrow Airport where Pan Am had better maintenance facilities than at Paris.

The learning curve also applied to the news media and how they dealt with Jet Age emergencies. In July that same year, another Pan American 707 lost two wheels from its left main landing gear while taking off from New York and, after burning off enough fuel, returned to Idlewild Airport to make a successful emergency landing on a foamed runway. Unbeknown to airport authorities, however, news of the impend­ing emergency was being broadcast “live” via local TV and radio stations. By the time the crippled jet landed, a crowd of more than 50,000 curious onlook­ers had invaded the airport grounds in order to see the expected crash. They stood literally by the side of the runway, much to the chagrin of rescue crews trying to reach the jetliner!

In August, the first fatal training accident of the Jet Age occurred when an American Airlines 707-120 rolled inverted at low altitude and crashed into a field after executing a two-engine-out missed approach to Calverton Airport on eastern Long Island. The practice crew of three pilots and two flight engineers were killed. Similar training accidents claimed a Braniff 707 later that same year, a Delta Convair 880 in 1960, a TWA 880 and another American 707 in 1961, and a Western Airlines Boeing 720B in 1963. These tragic losses made a compelling case for the development of more-sophisticated cockpit simulators to replace inflight training whenever possible.

By the end of 1962, operational turbine-powered airliners that crashed while in passenger service included a United DC-8 in Brooklyn (midair collision), an Eastern Electra in Boston (bird ingestion on takeoff), a Braniff Electra in flight over Texas (wing separation), an Aeronaves de Mexico DC-8 in New York (runway overrun), a Northwest Electra in flight over Indiana (wing separation), a United DC-8 in Denver (emergency landing), an American 707 at New York (rudder mal­function on takeoff), a Sabena 707 on landing at Brussels, Belgium, an Alitalia DC-8 landing in Bombay, India, a Varig 707 landing in Lima, Peru, and two Air France 707s —one on approach to Paris and the other landing in bad weather at Guadeloupe, West Indies.

When examined in historical perspective, these 18 accidents exacted an exceedingly high toll in terms of human life and machinery lost. However, because they occurred at the beginning of the learning curve, signifi­cant knowledge was amassed and equally significant improvements were made in aircraft design, operating procedures, and even air-traffic control. For instance, leading-edge slats and other high-lift devices were added to the Boeing 707, allowing lower landing speeds and better maneuverability. Ventral fins were also added to the 707 to allow greater inherent stability at low speeds and high angles of attack during landing. To reduce the risk of midair collisions, aircraft speeds were reduced to a 250-mph maximum below 10,000 feet.

As other lessons were learned from subsequent accidents and incidents over the years, continual improvements in airframe and powerplant design, onboard systems technology, and operational proce­dures were made that eventually led to the impressive safety record we enjoy for all types of commercial air­liners today.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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)

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

CC 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.

Coincident 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.

By Mike Machat

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.

With 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)