Comet

[michael_boylan]

No, not the retailer.

070804_DeHavilland20a.jpg

[elansprint72]

Certificate of airworthyness refused!
One of it's descendants flew over my house today (Nimrod being re-furbed at Woodford).

[biglouis]

Michael

A very evocative shot. The Comet being the first commercial jet airliner and a British triumph but for the unfortunate design of the windows on the fuselage. I can never remeber if it is the round ones which cause the catastrophic failure of the aircraft or these squarish ones.

All my life my father banged on about his trip to and from Austrailia in a Comet. In those days it must have been as exotic an experience as Concorde.

Anyway, a very worthy shot for this new forum and thanks for sharing

LouisB

[mark_goode]

Hi Michael - I thought maybe you meant the American cleaning powder, Comet. It looks like they could use a little Comet on this Comet. Great airplane and great image. Thanks for sharing.

[michael_boylan]

Originally Posted by biglouis

I can never remeber if it is the round ones which cause the catastrophic failure of the aircraft or these squarish ones.

I seem to remember it was stress fractures in the corners of the square windows. They were rather big too. Hence all subsequent aircraft have had round or oval ones.

[elansprint72]

Originally Posted by michael_boylan

I seem to remember it was stress fractures in the corners of the square windows. They were rather big too. Hence all subsequent aircraft have had round or oval ones.

From the TV documentary it looked like DH were fairly new to building metal aircraft, they had a problem getting the internal (glass-fibre?) window trim mouldings to stay in place on the square windows; a quick decision was taken to drill the airframe and pop rivet them in place. The rest, as they say....