Word: comets
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Some pessimists fear that Britain's swift but short-ranged jet Comets will capture air-transport supremacy from U.S. planes. Last week, Lockheed Aircraft Corp. tried to cheer up the mourners. It showed off the first model of its "turbo-compounded" Super Constellation, a piston-type plane which will not only carry about three times as many passengers (99) as the Comet I, but cover long hauls in less elapsed time. It is the first transport, said Lockheed, which will be able to guarantee nonstop flights from New York to Europe on a regular-fare, scheduled basis...
While not so fast as the Comet, which cruises at 480 m.p.h., the Super Connie, with a much longer range, will be able to fly from London to Johannesburg with one stop in 20 hours, a trip which now takes the Comet about 24 hours, with five refueling stops. Furthermore, the Super Connie itself will shortly take an intermediate step toward jet propulsion in a "turboprop" (i.e., jet-driven propellers) version as soon as turboprop engines are available for commercial use. (Lockheed is already building two Super Connies with Pratt & Whitney T-34 turboprops for the Navy.) These engines will...
...word announcement, Pan American World Airways this week surprised and dismayed the American aircraft industry. The announcement: Pan Am has ordered three Comet jet liners from Britain's De Havilland Co. at an estimated cost of $6,300,000, they are the first foreign planes, according to the Air Transport Association, ever ordered by a U.S. line. Pan Am, which expects to get the planes in 1956, also has an option to purchase seven more for delivery in 1957. As a warning to U.S. planemakers, Pan Am's President Juan Trippe added: the deal with De Havilland would...
...planes Pan Am is buying are not the Comets now flying on British routes, or the Comet II to be brought out next year. Pan Am's will be the Comet III, which Eastern Air Lines' Eddie Rickenbacker talked of buying (TIME, Sept. 8). The Comet III, said Trippe, will be powered by four Rolls-Royce Avon engines, and will be able to carry 58 first-class passengers (78 tourist class) at cruising speeds of 500 m.p.h. for 2,700 miles nonstop. It "will be the first jet transport," said Trippe, "able to operate efficiently over the principal...
...decided whether it will fly its Comets on Latin American or Far Eastern runs or across the Atlantic, which a Comet could do in about nine hours with one stop at Newfoundland or Ireland, four hours under present elapsed time...