THOUGHTS ON COMET OPERATION
NO OTHER AEROPLANE has been the target of so much comment from both optimists and pessimists as the de Havilland Comet. And not unnaturally. The successful operation of the first medium-long-range pure-jet transport might be expected to be the subject of conjecture since this must necessarily involve some new principles – though by no means as many or as strange as some people would have had us believe.
Of the two, optimists and intelligent doubters, de Havillands would, no doubt, much prefer to deal with the doubters. All of us – not excluding B.O.A.C. and de Havillands themselves – have had moments of unhappiness when we have wondered whether the more obvious advantages of high-speed, high-level travel were really going to outweigh the operational difficulties in a world of ground-level weather hold ups, mechanical faults, human error and unpredictable upper wind-speeds. Only experience could tell.
The doubters can now, to a reasonable degree, be answered by results – or they can, as before, be asked to wait for the eventual proof of the scheduled-operations pudding. But it is still not easy to deal with the over-enthusiastic friends who, with the best will in the world, and igno…
