The Really Big Jets

In 1962, Lockheed won an Air Force contract to build the largest cargo plane ever conceived. The aircraft specified by the government included power plants of four 21,000-pound thrust turbo­fans, a range of 4,000 miles, and a useful load of 71,000 pounds plus fuel. When complete, the aircraft would be known as the C-141 Starlifter, and it would have shortcomings. Chief among these was the fact that the C-141 did not have the design volume required to house the cargo load specified. Already recognized by the Air Force was the need for a larger airplane. The Air Force had put out for competition the design of what was to be known as the C-5A, a truly mam­moth creation. Lockheed won this competition too, even though Boeing’s entry was a serious contender in the competition and, on reflection, perhaps the best of the three entries.

Second-place Boeing decided to convert its design and engineering effort to commercial passenger use. Juan Trippe, ever on the cut­ting edge, had indicated an interest in such an aircraft. Boeing showed that its cargo plane could be modified to accommodate 450 passen­gers, at 19 feet, 5 inches in width, and 231 feet in length. The JT9D turbofan, a high-bypass – ratio jet engine with 41,000 pounds of thrust, was chosen to power the aircraft. This airplane would also fly faster than previous models, at 625 miles per hour, and would be known as the 747. (See Figure 21-5.) Juan Trippe had long ago concluded that the key to making

FIGURE 21-5 The Boeing 747.

money in the airline business was to fill the airplanes with paying customers, like he did with the DC-4 in the late 1940s in the San Juan to New York migration. Now, this was a dream come true. He signed a letter of intent to pur­chase 25 of the “wide bodies,” as they were to be known.

Boeing, just as it had during the design phase of the first American jet transport, the 707, took its safety responsibilities seriously. The “carnage factor” of a crash of such a large aircraft was daunting, and only increased Boe­ing’s commitment to safety in the design stage. A “safety committee” was formed to review every aspect of the new aircraft. Concerns of the committee ran the gamut of engineering and construction, from hydraulics, to wing loads, and even to coffee pots. The airplane was so huge that Boeing did not even have a facility large enough to build it, so a new plant had to be con­structed at Everett, Washington. It was the larg­est factory in the world.

The 747 first flew on February 9, 1969. Once again, Pan American was the first to place yet another new prototype airliner in service, this time the 747 Clipper Young America out of JFK for Europe. The 747 had initial problems, mostly because of its size. For instance, baggage

facilities were overloaded at destination, caus­ing delays; cabin attendants were overwhelmed by the number of drinks, meals, and related requirements caused by the passenger count; the lavatories seemed inadequate for the needs of passengers; and so on. Each of the concerns was addressed, resolved, and the 747 gradu­ally became a favorite of the flying public. The upper deck of the 747, complete with its cocktail lounge atmosphere for first-class passengers, which was sometimes converted to a restaurant, and its piano manned by a professional pianist, was reminiscent of the lower deck of the Strato – cruiser of the 1940s.

In 1967, Eockheed completed its design for its wide-bodied entrant into the field, known as the L-1011 Tristar. (See Figures 21-6 and 21-7.) Lockheed utilized the fuselage tail-mounted

FIGURE 21-6 Comparison of the interiors of the L-1011 (top) and the F-7 (bottom).

Source: Florida State Archives.

FIGURE 21-7 Lockheed L-1011.

engine of the original Trident, together with two wing-mounted engines, for its combined power plant, and it could accommodate 300 passengers.

Circumstances, primarily financial, had required Douglas to merge with McDonnell Air­craft of St. Louis in 1967. The new company was known as McDonnell-Douglas. Its submission to the wide-body contest was the DC-10, which bore a marked similarity to the L-1011. Both aircraft had three turbofans, one mounted under each wing and one tail mounted. The L-1011’s rear engine’s intake was built into the vertical stabilizer above the top of the fuselage, with the engine mounted at the rear of the cabin. In the DC-10, the third engine was mounted through the vertical stabilizer, with the intake and exhaust in a direct line fore to aft. (See Figure 21-8.)

FIGURE 21-8 DC-10.

In 1970, European aircraft builders, funded by their national governments and comprising a loose consortium of French and British interests that were later joined by the Germans, estab­lished their own aircraft production company, Airbus Industrie. The purpose, as they said, was “to reduce dependence on foreign equipment, facilitate survival of a struggling European air­craft industry and address a market opportunity not being met by the Americans.” This consor­tium designed the Airbus 300, a 300-passenger entry actually built by Sud Aviation in Tou­louse, France. The A300 had only two turbofan engines, either Rolls-Royce or General Electric, but for various reasons the A300 was slow to materialize. The A300 did not fly until 1972, over three years after the 747, and over one year after the DC-10.

Problems related to structural integrity were encountered by the DC-10 shortly after its inauguration. First, in June 1972, an American Airlines DC-10 out of Detroit suffered a decom­pression incident when a baggage door, located on the lower deck, blew off and collapsed the supporting deck of the passenger section above. Hydraulic lines had been designed and built to run the length of the aircraft through the floor or deck between the upper and lower compart­ments, and when the floor collapsed, some of these lines were severed, causing serious control problems for the flight crew. Only the ingenuity and skill of the crew allowed the stricken craft to be brought in for a safe landing.

The baggage doors were not the plug-type doors designed into many jet aircraft, but were dependent on latch mechanisms that, upon inves­tigation, were found to be defective. An aircraft directive mandating corrective action was issued and the modifications were performed with the exception of two airplanes.

One of these was found and fixed; the other was not. On March 3, 1974, the airliner that had been overlooked, a Turkish Airline DC-10, which was flying from Paris to London, suffered a similar baggage door failure with a similar floor collapse. This time the crew was unable to fly the aircraft, which crashed, taking all 346 lives aboard.

In the DC-10, no further baggage door inci­dents occurred, nor were any other serious fail­ures experienced for six years. Then on May 25, 1979, as an American Airlines DC-10 climbed out from Chicago О’Hare after takeoff, the left engine separated from the wing pylon, causing the aircraft to roll inverted and nose down, a condi­tion that the crew was unable to correct at such a low altitude. All 271 people on board were killed, along with two more on the ground. The NTSB determined the probable cause of the accident was “the asymmetrical stall and the ensuing roll of the aircraft because of the uncommanded retraction of the left wing leading edge slats.” The separation resulted “from improper maintenance procedures which led to the failure of the pylon structure.”

The wide-bodied experience of the Ameri­can producers could be said to have been only marginally successful. Ultimately, McDonnell – Douglas sold 300 DC-10s while Lockheed sold only 244 L-lOlls. By 1982 when production of the L-1011 was halted, Lockheed is said to have lost some $2.5 billion on the project.

Airbus, on the other hand, had managed to design a product that would crack the American airline market from Europe for the first time. The A300 had only two engines. This was of some concern initially for transoceanic flight, but it translated directly into reduced operating costs.

Secondly, the A300 had incorporated compos­ite, lightweight materials in its structure, adding to its cost effectiveness. As Air France began in 1974 to operate the A300 around the world, the airplane soon began to sell in the European and Asian airline market. Korean Air Lines, Lufthansa, Indian Air Lines, and South African Airways bought the A300. Frank Borman of Eastern arranged a six-month trial of the A300 for its New York to Miami route, without any commitment to buy the airplane. This was an unprecedented deal, amounting to a manufac­turer loss-leader arrangement whereby Airbus, in effect, loaned its airplane to Eastern on a trial basis. It turned out to be a brilliant stroke by Airbus that resulted in Eastern placing an order for 23 of the aircraft at the price of $25 million a copy, in April 1978.

With the Airbus 300, a trend began in airliner construction of wide-bodied, twin – engined, and lighter weight airplanes that still endures. Boeing contributed the 767 in 1983, using weight-saving composite materials and an advanced wing structure. Since the Boeing and Douglas face-off in the 1930s, beginning with the introduction of the 247 and the DC-1, the history of commercial airliner production competition had been an altogether American affair. Now, with the emergence of Airbus Industrie, com­bined with the shrinking number of American aircraft manufacturers, the contest was becoming not only international, but also specifically Euro­pean versus American.