DeHavilland Comet:
The DH-106 was the first jet airliner in service, flying revenue flights in 1952. Within a year or so, they began crashing from metal fatigue. Much has been made of the square windows and that fatigue cracks originated at the corners, but there wee also allegations that the installation methods as designed would not have had the same weakness.*
DeHavilland essentially redesigned it into the Comet-4 and sold a number of them, but the 707 and the DC-8 entered service about the same time. Both of those airplanes had larger passenger capacities, longer range and podded engines. Podded engines are easier to work on and easier to change out. The difference in maintenance costs alone would have driven the Comets out of service. I would also guess that their engines would be rather hard to "hush-kit".
There was a Comet-4 that was derelict at O'Hare airport in the late `70s. I've read that it was still there as late as 1992.
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* The rivet holes were punched out. The design was for drilled holes and the rivets backed up by adhesives. Supposedly the hole-punching induced stress points.
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3 comments:
So they turned it into the Nimrod and sold it to the RAF... sigh...
I drove by that every day the first month I was at ORD. We were living temporarily in a motel on Mannheim Road while house hunting, otherwise we mortal employees came in the back way and parked out by the fire station, midfield.
The aircraft was then parked in front of the Air Guard hangar north of 27R. The image shown is after the Comet had been restored and sold (or leased) to the guy whose name is on the side, and is different than it was when I drove by.
If the name doesn't ring a bell, he was the owner of Naked City near Roselawn, Indiana. I'm sorry to report that I went there once to attend a competition. Scientific research only, I assure you.
LRod
ZJX, ORD, ZAU retired
Found a news story in the Chicago Tribune. Seems the sheriff auctioned it in 1987 and the city bought it for <$5,000. The city then donated it to the O'Hare Rotarians with the provision that they remove it from the field.
The dismantled the jet over the following 5 years using donations and volunteer labor (<#3,000 spent but over 6,000 hours) but couldn't find anyone that wanted to take it.
Interesting little article...
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1992-04-18/business/9202040587_1_rotary-club-airplane-aviation
That lead me to another Seattle article that indicated that the O'Hare Comet was eventually scrapped, perhaps in 1993.
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19931209&slug=1736064
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