de Havilland
began developing the Comet, one of the world’s first
pressurised commercial aircraft, in 1946, under the chief designer
Ronald Bishop, who had been responsible for a number of previous
famous de Havilland designs including the Mosquito
fighter-bomber.
The first flight of the prototype DH.106 Comet lasted 31 minutes on 27 July 1949 with de Havilland’s chief test pilot John Cunningham, a famous night-fighter pilot of the Second World War at the controls. The aircraft was first publicly displayed at the 1949 Farnborough Air Show and then went straight into its flight trial programme. A year later the second prototype made its maiden flight. This aircraft was delivered to the BOAC Comet Unit at Hurn airfield, Bournemouth on the 2 April 1951, where it carried out more than 500 flying hours of crew training and route proving.
The Comet was a low wing, all metal, four-engined jet aircraft with many innovative design features including a swept leading edge, integral wing fuel tanks and four-wheel bogie main undercarriage units. Two pairs of de Havilland Ghost 50 turbojet engines were buried in the wings close to the fuselage. This avoided the drag of podded engines under the wings and allowed a smaller fin and rudder configuration and also reduced the risk of asymmetrical thrust. The Comet’s thin metal skin was composed of advanced new alloys and was both chemically bonded and riveted, which saved weight and reduced the risks of fatigue cracks spreading from the rivets. It was the most exhaustively tested aircraft commercial airliner in history.
The Comet entered service with BOAC on 2 May 1952, when it launched the world’s first jet commercial airline service with scheduled flights to South Africa.
The Comet was about 50% faster than rival aircraft and on some routes cut journey times by as much as half. Its relatively simple, fuel efficient engine with low maintenance costs and little vibration could fly above any bad weather which traditional piston aircraft would have to fly through. It soon became a big hit with passengers including Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and in its first year carried 30,000 passengers.
However, despite these early successes, de Havilland faced a number of problems including a series of crashes. On 2 May 1953 a BOAC Comet 1 crashed six minutes after take-off in a severe tropical storm in India. This was followed by a second accident off the Italian island of Elba on the 10 January 1954. And on 8 April 1954, a Comet, on a flight from Rome to Cairo, crashed near Naples in Italy. The fleet was immediately grounded once and an investigation board was formed under the direction of the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough.
Stress around the window corners and the aircraft skin were higher than expected. The square windows were redesigned and the skin sheeting was thickened slightly. The Comet did not resume commercial airline service until 1958, when the much-improved Comet 4 was introduced. It could carry more passengers and had a longer range, higher cruising speed and higher maximum takeoff weight. It became the first scheduled trans-Atlantic passenger jet service in history, flying from London to New York with a stop-over at Gander on 4th October 1958. BOAC’s rival Pan American inaugural trans-Atlantic service commenced three weeks later.
As well as commercial flights, Comet 4 fuselages were modified to meet a British need for a maritime patrol aircraft for the Royal Air Force. Designated the HS.801, the aircraft became the Hawker Siddeley Nimrod and was built at the Hawker Siddeley factory at Woodford Aerodrome.
