Word: havilland
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...reasonable facsimile of confusion. From the control booth, Director Seymour Kulik barked commands to his headset-wearing assistants as the actors, electricians and cameramen annoyingly muffed their cues. The play was To Each His Own, adapted from the 1946 movie that won an Oscar for Olivia de Havilland. Now, cut from two hours to 46 minutes, it starred Dorothy McGuire on NBC's Lux Video Theater-the first of a series of adaptations of top movies with top movie stars...
BOAC is buying eight used Boeing Stratocruisers and seven used Lockheed Constellations to replace its grounded fleet of De Havilland Comets. Newest clue to the cause of the Comet's trouble: pressure tests on a Comet fuselage reportedly caused it to split along one side, indicating that it will have to be strengthened to stand flights...
...Havilland has reported no clues. But there were dozens of possibilities. British airmen were inclined to discount the theory first advanced that a flying turbine blade had caused the wing fuel tanks to explode, since the last Comet to crash had special armor between engines and tanks (TIME, March 22). Most think it more likely that either the kerosene-type fuel, which becomes highly volatile at high altitudes, exploded, or that vapor from a leaking hydraulic line might have been touched off by a spark. Others guessed that the big jet's power-operated controls, which give the pilot...
Plane Shortage. Whatever the reason, De Havilland's troubles are a serious blow to Britain's brave experiment to capture the lead in jet transports. The grounding of the Comets leaves British Overseas Airways with only 43 planes, half U.S.-built, for its worldwide routes. BOAC has been forced to close down its South American routes, thus losing $280,000 a week in passenger revenues. To build up its fleet, the company was trying to borrow Lockheed Constellations from Australia's Quantas Empire Airways, was reportedly talking about buying new piston-powered Constellations direct from Lockheed...
...competing U.S. planemakers, De Havilland's decision means that the worst of the pressure was off in the race for the transport market. Boeing will put the first U.S. transport model, its four-jet 707, in the air next month, is pushing work ahead of schedule, and Douglas also has a plane past the blueprint stage. Said a De Havilland executive: "We know we're in a crisis. Even if the cause of the crashes were found tomorrow, we would have lost between four and six months . . . But until it is, we won't go back...