Word: havilland
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...unpalatable truth is that the celebrated $1.37 billion-a-year R.A.F. is now depending upon U.S. Sabre jets, plus about 1,500 obsolescent British jets (Gloster Meteors, De Havilland Vampires and Venoms), for the air defense of London. The Fighter Command's swept-wing Supermarine Swift is grounded; its delta-wing Javelins and its PIs are critical months from service, and so are antiaircraft guided missiles. "The R.A.F.," said the Spectator bitterly, "is relatively worse off now than it was at the time of Munich. At least in 1938 it had one Spitfire...
...immense, ten-engined Princess flying boat has been in the prototype stage since 1946, still needs better engines; Bristol's equally large Brabazon, designed to carry 100 passengers across the Atlantic, never got into production, was finally broken up and sold for scrap. And De Havilland's famed four-jet Comet I was grounded after three crashes...
Viscounts in Vickerland. To Britons, Vickers' new Viscount is soothing balm after the blows to their prestige from the De Havilland Comet crashes. British aviation experts make the point that wherever Viscounts have flown on trunk (under 1,000 mile) routes, the turboprop planes have proved tough competition for piston-engined U.S. transports. Their four 1,400-h.p. Rolls Royce jet engines, hooked to propellers, not only make them about 35 m.p.h. faster than competing Convairs, but also much quieter and smoother riding. (British European Airways passenger traffic has gone up about 26% since switching to Viscounts from...
...Havilland Aircraft Co., builders of the Comets, could not have been happy to hear the results of the inquiry, which placed the blame for the crashes on faulty design and manufacturing methods. But Britain's aircraft industry might well be proud of the inquiry's utter frankness. Its designers are already using the Farnborough testing methods to make sure that such disasters will not happen again...
COMET CRASH mystery has finally been solved by British scientists, though Planemaker De Havilland will not announce the findings until the inquiry is formally completed next month. Rumored cause: the intense pressures of high-speed, high-altitude flight caused the metal in the fuselage to "fatigue" and the planes split open in midair, killing...