Word: boac
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Last week, as the applause over the Comet showed, many were still playing what BOAC's Sir Miles himself once condemned as "the merry game of brochure-manship"-covering up basic deficiencies with torrents of pressagentry and hopeful prediction. Despite its good flight, the Comet III is but a prototype of a prototype that is to fly sometime in 1958, will be both slower, smaller and shorter in range than Douglas' DC-8 or Boeing's 707 jet transports...
...doing everything possible to make the new planes a success. In the House of Commons, Transport and Civil Aviation Minister John Boyd-Carpenter announced that government-owned British Overseas Airways would honor its order for twelve Comet II's and five Comet Ill's, added that BOAC might even up its order with three more Comets. The Royal Air Force will also lend a helping hand by taking the remaining five Comet I's off BOAC's hands, use them for research and development...
...BOAC had no choice. Ever since the war, Britons have dreamed of the day when British lines would be flying British planes around the world. But with the exception of Vickers' short-haul Viscount turboprop (TIME, Jan. 3), most of Britain's postwar transports, especially its long-range planes, have been expensive flops. Avro's huge, highly touted Tudor transport failed in a series of disastrous crashes; Saunders-Roe's immense, ten-engined Princess flying boat has been in the prototype stage since 1946, still needs better engines; Bristol's equally large Brabazon, designed...
Flurries & Facts. To carry BOAC into the age of nonstop transatlantic flying, the line had counted on the Comet I's big sister, the Comet III. But its future is still clouded; safety modifications may keep the new jet off commercial routes until 1960. Another hope is the Bristol Britannia, a long-range, 340-m.p.h. transport with four turboprop engines. BOAC has poured $20 million into the project, ordered ten planes. But the Britannia, too, is a question mark. With little transport experience, Bristol is already 14 months behind schedule, will probably not deliver the first plane until...
After the first flurries of angry disappointment last week, sensible Britons were reconciled to the unpleasant facts. Intoned London's staid Times: "BOAC must be allowed to purchase the best aircraft for their services irrespective of the country in which they are made. Otherwise the corporation cannot compete with other airlines, not merely American airlines, but all others which use American airliners where they give the best performance...