The time frame at which jet age was soon to be born was considered the golden era of aviation. Flying aboard a piston propeller powered aircraft was a whole different story. Flights were not the comfortable or glamourous. The flights also took way longer than flights these days. The constant vibrations and noise coming from the propellers were exhausting. It does not end there, most of these aircraft were not able to fly high enough to avoid bad weather so passengers felt turbulent rides. In 1949 though a new aircraft was introduced. It had a sleek fuselage, quiet engines, and faster than other aircraft. The aircraft was able to fly above 30,000 feet. This allowed the aircraft to avoid poor flying conditions. This aircraft was called the de Havilland Comet. The comet was the world's first jet aircraft and broke the way people and airlines thought about aviation and promised future for the the airlines. But as every airline wants this aircraft in their fleets, things go terribly wrong. This would end up causing the jet age transition to be a bumpy ride. This is the story of the de Havilland Comet.
During the 1940's British manufactures set out to build aircraft that would change the way civil aviation was. They really didn't have a choice though because after the second war American manufacturers had the aviation market concerned. Ninety percent of the worlds airline passengers were flying on the iconic american made Douglas DC-3. The Americans had a lot of experience with building aircraft after the second war. Their manufacturing ways were still intact which allowed the manufacturer's to transition to building airliners based on military transport designs. Like the Lockheed Constellation which was a military plane that was converted to a civilian plane. On the other side of the world in Britain was a problem. They had only focused on heavy bombers during the war. So now they needed to do research and build infrastructure on civilian aircraft. This way they could have a chance with competing with other aircraft on the market. If the British were going to become leaders in aviation then they needed to step up their game. They needed to come up with something that was never before, that was the future of aviation. A lot of airlines sent away the idea of a jet powered airliner as it was not related towards the conventional piston aircraft at the time. Airlines also thought these jet engines did not have a reasonable ratio of fuel to jet power. To sum it all up airlines just thought they were not powerful enough and just too unreliable. But in contrary piston aircraft had their own issues. The propellers were reaching their operating limits. To get more power from the propellers, the manufacturer's made bigger engines filled with more cylinders and superchargers. These upgrades made piston aircraft increasingly expensive to maintain. In effort to develop Britain's post-war aviation industry,
de Havilland Aircraft Company Limited was given the task of designing the aircraft. The company came up with many designs. In 1944 they came up with a short-range mail aircraft with a passenger compartment. This design was phased out and in 1945 redesigned. They ended up scrapping the idea again until in 1947 when they came up with a sleek aircraft that had preferred configuration. The name Comet which was given to the aircraft, was developed in secrecy. Untenable designs were used to confuse competitors. This stunned the world three years later in 1949 when the Comet was introduced to the world. The aircraft was everything. It was sleek, had swept wings, and four turbojet engines integrated into the wings. The aircraft looked like it had flew from the future. The aircraft became superior and proved the world about Britain's superiority in making aircraft. Aircraft orders from airlines were growing. Even Pan Am, an American airline that was skeptical of jets ordered a modified version of the aircraft. The aircraft was revolutionary. It broke the barrier for jet travel. Turbojets took in a lot of fuel at lower altitudes where most planes were barely able to fly. The Comet was able to fly at a whole 40,000 feet, where there is less drag and thin air. This allowed the Comet to take in a lot less fuel than at lower altitudes. The Comet had to be pressurized though at 75 kpa to allow passengers to breathe. The Comet was not the first aircraft though to be pressurized, but no other aircraft flew so high. Since the aircraft went into service in 1952, it has broken many records. Doing this became the time of national pride for the British. The Comet was a little to ahead of its time. With a clean design there were many sudden variables to deal with. There were numerous electrical and hydraulic issues. Two Comets skidded off the runway in 1952 and 1953 , the pilots were blamed. They were accused of over-rotating the aircraft as if it was a piston aircraft. Later it was determined that the leading edge slats of the Comet were to blame. The airlines confidence in the Comet was not interrupted though. The British continued their confidence in the aircraft too. Until another incident a few months later. This incident was fatal. A Comet operated by B.O.A.C was leaving Calcutta in India on May 2nd, 1953. The aircraft ominously disintegrated flying through a thunderstorm. Eight months later on January 10th 1954 another B.O.A.C Comet, this time departing from Elba in Italy, disintegrated shortly after takeoff. After these incidents, B.O.A.C, the biggest Comet operator grounded their entire fleet of Comets. After the Comet re-entered service airlines still had no trouble with selling seats despite the prior incidents. Then 3 months later another Comet operated by South African Airways disintegrated over the Mediterranean. After this incident, every Comet in the world was grounded. The Comets certificate of airworthiness was revoked. A large investigation went into effect and the results were shocking. Sudden catastrophic depressurization of the Comets cabin was to blame. The depprezuriton caused the aircraft the explode. The Comets pressurization cycle was different from many other aircraft. The Comet had faster pressurization cycles. After many cycles the fuselage of the aircraft became fatigued. Cracks formed in the fuselage, this especially happened in the aircraft's square windows. The windows were where the fatigue and pressure built up due to the hard squared corners which concentrated stress. The investigation continued and comet stayed grounded for many years. But as soon as the investigation ended, the comet would never take off again. As de Havilland tried to get back on top and modify the comets with thicker skin and round windows. The rest of the world was catching up. The American Boeing 707 and Douglas DC-8 were born. So were Tupolev Tu-104 and the Sud Aviation Caravelle. Later the de Havilland Comet 4 entered service. The Comet though lost its shine, it could not compete and sell as well as its rivals. Its rivals were larger, faster, and twice as efficient than the Comet. 500 Dc-8's and 1,011 B707's were sold compared to 76 Comet 4's. But Boeing and Douglas would have never had this success had it not been for the Comet. Boeing and Douglas stated they learned from the pressurization problems from the Comet and if it were not for the Comet, they would have made identical mistakes. The Comet 4's reliably served airlines through the 60's and 70's. The Comet era came to a final end in the 1980's. The Comet paved the way for many jets that fly in the sky these days. The British took a risk and when they did that, out came the jet age. It's no doubt that this aircraft was successful but in its development years and years before the Comet 4, It was a huge failure in design. We all learn from mistakes and improve from them, and that is what de Havilland did. That is the story of the square-windowed first jetliner.
