The Jet Age

With a splash of purple-worded publicity ("breakfast in London . . . predinner swim at Waikiki"), U.S. commercial aviation last week made its long-awaited move to jet-propelled aircraft. Pan American World Airways signed contracts for 25 Douglas DC-8s and 20 Boeing 707 four-jet airliners. It was the first deal to buy U.S. commercial jets. Total price: $269 million, the biggest in airline history. The deal is certain to be followed by plane purchase orders from other carriers. National Airlines is expected to sign for six DC-8s on which it took a verbal option last August. Other shoppers include United, American, Eastern, Air France, KLM and Panagra.

For the traveler, the jets will bring a new age. Both planes will be giants half again as big as today's piston-engine airliners. The Boeing will carry up to 125 passengers, the Douglas up to 131. Both planes will have Pratt & Whitney engines, will cruise at 575 m.p.h. at 30,000 ft., cut flying times dramatically, e.g., New York to Paris in 6 hr. 35 min. (against 11 hr. today), San Francisco to Tokyo in 12 hr. 45 min. (against 25 hr.). The combination of high speeds and big loads will probably bring lower fares. Boeing will begin deliveries of its planes in December 1958, and Pan American hopes to put them into service soon afterward on its runs to Europe, Asia and South America. Douglas will begin deliveries one year later.

Across the U.S. As a foretaste of what is to come, Boeing this week flew the prototype of the 707 on a nonstop flight from Seattle to Washington in 3 hr. 58 min., only 12 min. slower than the transcontinental record set by a Boeing B-47 bomber. Average speed: 592 m.p.h.

The 707 has a rate of climb (2,500 ft. per minute) twice as fast as the average piston-engine airliners and a maximum altitude of 50,000 ft. It is so maneuverable in approaches that it can circle an airfield at 500 ft. in a radius of less than a mile; on one occasion a Boeing test pilot put it through a slow roll at 2,000 ft. The plane will be powered by Pratt & Whitney's J57 engine, the most powerful (well over 10,000 lbs. thrust) in production in the Western world. (The J57 drives such key military planes as the B-52 bomber and F-102 fighter.)

Douglas has spent some $5,000,000 and 300,000 engineering man hours to design its plane. It will closely resemble the 707, have swept-back wings and underslung engine pods, which reduce the danger of fire or structural damage if an engine breaks down. The DC-8 will have the heavier, more powerful (well over 15,000 lbs. thrust) Pratt & Whitney J75 engine. Both planes will be fitted with newly developed silencers to cut the scream of their jets on the ground, plus a device to reverse the jet thrust so that they can be stopped quickly after landing.

Purchase of the planes was a coup for Pan Am's President Juan Trippe. By splitting his order between the only two U.S. manufacturers with jet transports, Pan Am has neatly squeezed out competitors, will get the first jet airliners into service.

But Trippe will have to scramble for more business to keep his jets busy. One plane will carry 50,000 passengers a year across the Atlantic (almost matching the 67,577 carried across the Atlantic last year by the 53,000-ton liner United States). At that rate it would take only 36 jets to fly the 1,799,000 people carried by Pan Am's whole fleet of 147 planes in 1954.

In any case, Pan Am's move into jets will be a big factor in establishing U.S. commercial supremacy in jet transports. The only competitor has been Great Britain. But Britain's jet development has been so set back by the Comet's three crashes that cost 99 lives that even British Overseas Airways Corp. now may be forced to buy 707s or DC-8s to meet its competition across the Atlantic.

Another big aircraft manufacturer got a big order last week. The Air Force announced a $100 million contract to Lockheed for the single-jet F-104A, which USAF Chief of Staff General Nathan Twining describes as "the fastest, highest-flying fighter in the air anywhere." The order follows a $100 million contract placed by Eastern Air Lines last month for 40 Lockheed Electra turboprop airliners and an Air Force order last fortnight for "over $100 million" worth of C-130A Hercules cargo planes, boosting Lockheed's backlog to over $1.4 billion.

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