RETURN OF COMETS

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27498, 4 November 1954, Page 13

RETURN OF COMETS

“Slight” Changes Needed

LONDON, November 1. Sir Arnold Hall, official Royal Air Force investigator, said today that Britain’s suspended Comet jet airliners needed only slight alterations to go back into service.

He told a London Court of Inquiry into two Comet crashes off Italy this year that exhaustive tests had revealed no inherent defect in their design. All they needed was a thicker gauge skin and some strengthening of fuselage.and wings. He added in reply to a question that when they resumed operations they would be backed by a unique background of precautionary examination. Sir Arnold Hall, who was being cross-examined by Sir Hartley Shawcross, representing de Havillands (makers of the Comet), said never to his knowledge had any aircraft been subjected to such examination as that carried out on the Comet at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, of which he is director. He agreed that the Comet was a safe aircraft, well designed, and well made. He had found many, features of it quite excellent and the aircraft was very well engineered. He said he would now advise the sacrifice of one complete aircraft of every new design in tests to find the safe fatigue life of each plane. “I am sure fatigue can be cured and that it will be possible on a basis of s *gn and a programme of tests to find the safe fatigue life of a plane. “In a completely hew aircraft, the points where fatigue might strike could be identified in the light of general knowledge. The next step would be to put about six identical specimens of these parts through laboratory tests. It might also be necessary to put a whole aircraft on test, as has been done at Farnborough with the Comet.”