COMET 111 ‘BEHAVES PERFECTLY’ ON MAIDEN FLIGHT

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27407, 21 July 1954, Page 11

COMET 111 ‘BEHAVES PERFECTLY’ ON MAIDEN FLIGHT

(Rec. 7 p.m.) LONDON, July 19. Britains new trans-Atlantic fet airliner, the Comet HI, “behaved perfectly” on its maiden flight today.

After the flight the De Havilland Aircraft Company issued a statement to say that the prototype Comet 111 made a “successful flight.” The aeroplane was in the air for 35 minutes. The Comet 111 was piloted today by De Havilland’s chief test pilot, Mr John Cunningham with Mr Peter Buggee as his co-fiilot. Mr Cunningham reported after the flight that the aeroplane had “behaved perfectly,” the company said. The aircraft, which has been ordered by British, United States, and other operators, carries from 58 to 76 passengers, depending on the layout of the seating. It is driven by four Rolls-Royce Avon engines, which give much the same power as the world’s biggest atpm bombers. Few people were in the secret of today’s flight, which took place from the airfield of De Havillands, at Hatfield, Hertfordshire. Its take-off

caught even the factory workers by surprise. The Comet 111 cruises at more than 500 miles an hour, and has a much greater non-stop range than the original Comet Series I. She is capable of linking New York with London with a single stop at, say, Gander, Newfoundland, in between seven and eight hours. The new aircraft, is about the size of a Stratocruiser. It is about 18ft longer than the original Series I. A fleet of the new type has been ordered by the British Overseas Airways Corporation and Pan American Airways have commissioned three, with the option of a further seven. Other overseas orders have also been received. The prototype made its maiden flight while Britain still awaited an official announcement on what caused two •Comets of the original Series I to

crash in the Mediterranean earlier this year. One dived into the sea off Elba with the loss of 35 lives, and the other crashed off Naples, when 21 were killed. The Series I Comets were grounded after the Naples crash in April, and since then a number of the jet airliner fleet owned by the' British Overseas Airways Corporation has been submitted to gruelling tests, aimed at solving the mystery of the disasters. Official confirmation and comment is still lacking-on reports that underwater tests at the Royal Aircraft Establishment. Farnborough. have established the cause of the disasters as compression fatigue.