Word: comets
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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With a cruising range of about 1,200 miles, Avro's Jetliner was planned especially to meet Canadian conditions for fast, economical inter-city air service (it will not compete with the British De Havilland Comet for transocean traffic). An all-Canadian job except for its four Rolls-Royce Derwent V engines, it was designed to carry a load of 50 passengers plus crew of three, and to fly 430 m.p.h...
...Comet is Britain's most ambitious challenge to the present worldwide supremacy of U.S.-built commercial air transports. British attempts to compete with the U.S. in long-range, propeller-driven airliners have been notable flops. Even her own overseas airlines fly U.S. aircraft. But a successful Comet could change all this by giving Britain the edge in high-speed commercial flying. U.S. manufacturers, who have not even started to build jet airliners, are not likely to have anything to compete with the Comet for several years...
Four Ghosts. The Comet was designed and built in secrecy; De Havilland has not yet released many of its details. It is about as big as a DC-6, with its four Rolls-Royce Ghost jet engines looking sleek and slim on its moderately swept-back wings. Its claimed cruising speed is 500 m.p.h. at 35-40,000 feet. At this speed and altitude, each Ghost develops thrust equivalent to 10,500 h.p. The Pratt & Whitney Double Wasp reciprocating engines that power the DC-6 develop only about 2,100 h.p. at full throttle...
Chief disadvantage of jet engines is their enormous thirst for fuel. At cruising speed and altitude each Ghost drinks 120 imperial gallons (144 U.S. gallons) of kerosene per hour. To get her safely across the Atlantic and allow a three-hour safety margin, the Comet will have to carry something like 6,000 gallons of fuel (the DC-6's load: 4,248 gallons). Fully loaded, the Comet will probably carry only 20 passengers on a long flight (the DC-6 can carry...
...Hours Across. The Comet can, however, cut the long, boring flight across the Atlantic almost in half. It is expected to make New York nonstop from London in six to seven hours; it would be no trick at all to make a round trip in a day. Four hops could get it to Australia in 36 hours. De Havilland hopes that many passengers in a hurry will gladly pay extra for speed...