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The prototype Comet In flight during 1949, at the time the aircraft represented an incredible technical feat unequalled anywhere else in the world.
Profile – DH Comet Pt I
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Throughout the history of aviation there are aircraft types that break through the barrier of existing technology restraints and pioneer into new and unchartered areas of aeronautical design and achievement. Conceived during the latter stages of the Second World War and first flown in 1949, the de Havilland Comet was considered at the time to be a crowning achievement of British aeronautical capability. That the initial design developed severe structural flaws only served to highlight the importance of airframe strength and longevity, something until that time not taken greatly into account owing to the previously relatively short operational lifespan of both civil and military aircraft. In this two part Profile we examine aviation’s first jet airliner and how it influenced a future generation of passenger jets that today are the backbone of the world’s air transportation system.
De Havilland Comet
Part I
At 6. 17pm on 27 July 1949, the de Havilland Comet took to the air for the first time from Hatfield flown by John Cunningham, de Havilland’s Chief Test Pilot with a three man crew. It is doubtful that those who witnessed the event or participated in the 31 minute flight could have realised in their wildest dreams, the immense strides that were to take place 10, 20, 30 and 40 years onwards.
History has since proven that this was amongst the select band of epoch making first flights. The Comet was the forerunner of the thousands of commercial jet airliners which have
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