<
https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/neither-money-nor-manpower-the-story-of-the-de-havilland-comet-and-the-crash-of-boac-flight-781-36db2a3435ce>
"In the spring of 1952, British aviation took a great leap forward when the de
Havilland Comet I became the first jet airliner to carry paying passengers,
soaring away from London Heathrow Airport at twice the speed and to twice the
height of its contemporary competitors. Much fanfare accompanied the coming of
this new era, as the press and public alike hailed the Comet as evidence of
Britain’s return to the forefront of aeronautical engineering after the
devastation of WWII. But this pride would soon be dented, not once or twice,
but over and over again, as Comets crashed in Rome, Karachi, and Calcutta. But
it was not until the 10th of January 1954, when BOAC flight 781 abruptly
disintegrated at 29,000 feet after takeoff from Rome that the industry truly
began to wonder whether something was wrong. The Comet was grounded, then
ungrounded almost as quickly, only for disaster to strike again just days
later, sealing the unfortunate fate of the world’s first passenger jet.
What was causing the Comet to fall apart at the seams? The answer would seem
shocking today, but was groundbreaking at the time: as it turned out, the
fuselage itself was simply not strong enough, and would fail in fatigue after
as few as 1,000 flights. The danger of metal fatigue was far from unrecognized
at the time, but in an effort to bring aerospace engineering into the
terra
incognita of high altitude pressurized flight, assumptions were made which
would prove disastrously unfounded. The subsequent unraveling of those
assumptions would transform the process of designing and testing commercial
airplanes, proving that the construction of a modern jet takes more precision —
and more math — than almost anyone had anticipated."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
