JET AGE: Triumphs And Failures. The Early Battle For Air Dominance: Boeing Vs. De Havilland

DroneScapes
DroneScapes
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Published 2024-04-13
The early battle for air dominance after WW2. The Jet Age revolution of post WW2.
De Havilland against Boeing, Tupolev, and many other aviation innovators.
The De Havilland Comet became the first passenger jet airliner in the world, initially powered by Frank Whittle's turbojet, the British inventor who, contrary to popular belief, had a working turbojet before Germany in April 1937.
Some initial mistakes are reminiscent of today's issues with companies like Boeing, who also had initial teething problems, just like De Havilland's notorious issue with their Comet.
The de Havilland DH.106 Comet is the world's first commercial jet airliner. Developed and manufactured by de Havilland in the United Kingdom, the Comet 1 prototype first flew in 1949. It features an aerodynamically clean design, four de Havilland Ghost turbojet engines buried in the wing roots, a pressurized cabin, and large windows. It offered a relatively quiet, comfortable passenger cabin for the era and was commercially promising at its debut in 1952.

Within a year of the airliner's entry into service, three Comets were lost in highly publicized accidents after suffering catastrophic mishaps mid-flight. Two of these were found to be caused by structural failure resulting from metal fatigue in the airframe, a phenomenon not fully understood at the time; the other was due to overstressing of the airframe during flight through severe weather. The Comet was withdrawn from service and extensively tested. Design and construction flaws were ultimately identified, including improper riveting and dangerous stress concentrations around square cut-outs for the ADF (automatic direction finder) antennas. As a result, the Comet was extensively redesigned with structural reinforcements and other changes. Rival manufacturers heeded the lessons from the Comet when developing their aircraft.

Although sales never fully recovered, the improved Comet 2 and the prototype Comet 3 culminated in the redesigned Comet 4 series, which debuted in 1958 and remained in commercial service until 1981. The Comet was also adapted for various military roles such as VIP, medical, passenger transport, and surveillance; the last Comet 4, used as a research platform, made its final flight in 1997. The most extensive modification resulted in a specialized maritime patrol derivative, the Hawker Siddeley Nimrod, which remained in service with the Royal Air Force until 2011, over 60 years after the Comet's first flight.

The Comet was involved in 25 hull-loss accidents, including 13 fatal crashes, which resulted in 492 fatalities.[186] Pilot error was blamed for the type's first fatal accident, which occurred during takeoff at Karachi, Pakistan, on 3 March 1953 and involved a Canadian Pacific Airlines Comet 1A.[82] Three fatal Comet 1 crashes were due to structural problems, specifically British Overseas Airways Corporation flight 783 on 2 May 1953, British Overseas Airways Corporation flight 781 on 10 January 1954, and South African Airways flight 201 on 8 April 1954, led to the grounding of the entire Comet fleet. After design modifications were implemented, Comet services resumed on October 4, 1958, with Comet 4s.

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#comet #Boeing #aviation
All Comments (21)
  • @miscbits6399
    Shute's autobiogarphy makes it very clear No Highway was about the Comet. He was fired from de Havilland and gagged using the Cfficial Secrets Act after publishing a memo detailing metal fatigue issues, which is why he migrated to Australia He was also heavily involved in R101 and heavily criticised it before its maiden voyage Comet would have been ok if the workforce had been infoermed of the issues. The punch rivets were forced into slightly too small holes (causing microcracking) and overtightened (exacerbating the issue) - window corners was the easy thing to blame but engineers had actually designed to avoid those stresses. They also designed with heavy use of adhesive bonding due to pressurisation issues - de Havilland manglement insisted on rivets because "they knew best" (never having built a pressurised aircraft before) - this was the crux of Shute's criticisms
  • @martinhumble
    Amazing work. Great documentary, editing, upscaling and - well everything. Hats off!!
  • @stevenreyes3680
    I was going to say something… I took a 747 to Hawaii in 1971. I came back 6 months later on a 707. It felt like a race car compared to the family wagon ? More like a Winnebago… PS I didn’t know it started out as a tanker…
  • @BatGS
    Greetings: I love the old Connie flying on 1 engine. I flew on a few of those. What a dream. Great memories.
  • @jadall77
    At about 35:00 minutes the guys shutting off all but 1 engine saw a modern clip from a I think p3 orion shutting off all but 1 engine because they have to keep it out on rotation for anti submarine or radar and to conserve fuel they can fly around on 1 of 4 engines. Which is a different model of a 1950's airliner.
  • @BatGS
    Greetings: How many of us remember flying in these planes? What a time. Things sure have changed. I would rather drive.
  • @mikecawood
    The additional fuel tank in the Super VC10 was in the tail fin NOT the fuselage.
  • @jadall77
    I'm on the big section about the connie there is one flying around still and it's gorgeous I think it's called Connie.
  • @user-kw5qv6zl5e
    The placement of engines (totally rear or underwiing) is an interesting study. In the end look at if like this...rear engines ...top tail.. thats a lot of stuff to put in a place it "sort of looks like it doesnt balance" You are totally balancing hardware (engines) with consumables (fuel) farther forward. The centre of gravity and the centre of lift are alaays in the move in both cases. So lets say now we have an elevator problem...or an engine out...straight away we see in rear engine ...YAW...big time ..pushed from the back...its better to "tow" a plane from the front (middle) ...think of a shopping trolley...its worse push from the back..drag it from the front ..hard but better...you notice the effort is less. Only until the F16 fighter turned up did we see beautiful "ouf of control " casters"
  • @alexvikendi1768
    Gf : what are you watching/listen to again ? Throw the laptop across the room
  • @brucegibbins3792
    In their rush to be first to fly a passenger jet, the British were doomed to produce a flawed aircraft. In contrast, American aircraft manufacturers, took what time was nessesery to release a more utilitarian design and more reliable airliners that quickly became the preferred choice of Airlines around the world. The British were masters of innovation, yet much less so in implementation.
  • @jadall77
    49:00 or so into the video I think I saw a thing about the dc-8 breaking the sound barrier they took it up high and put it in a dive and it stuck their flight controls for a moment before they got control of it again but yeah they broke mach 1. Also It was I think a test or company flight so had limited persons on board.
  • @awuma
    Lovely film sequences, but quite often the spoken commentary is not about what is being shown (e.g. talk about turboprops when only piston engined aircraft are being shown). Not a single Viscount shown during the first Viscount segment.
  • @mikecawood
    You seem to be confusing a Douglas DC4 with a Vickers Viscount.
  • @321-Gone
    You've got to stop saying twin piston engines. Gear heads will immediately think of a 2 cylinder engine, and say wait, what did you just say?. Could you imagine a 20 liter 2 cylinder engine?