Seldom has there been greater optimism about British aviation as when the DH106 Comet jet airliner first took to the air 75 years ago, and stole a march on the world. As we now know, a run of tragedies meant the lead wouldn’t last. But how had de Havilland achieved such a coup? In an article written specially for The Aeroplane in May 1952, just as the Comet 1 was entering service, the company’s chief designer R. E. Bishop described the thinking behind this commercial pioneer
At the end of the war we were faced with the problem of catching up the American lead in transport aircraft. We felt that to embark upon the design of an aeroplane similar to the Lockheed Constellation or the Douglas DC-6, or even a little in advance of those designs, would be fruitless, since our aircraft would inevitably be five years late. We also felt that the American airliners would be able to take advantage of engine developments up to the stage of the propeller turbine, and that we should always be trailing along behind them and striving to catch up.
We had had considerable experience of the Goblin jet engine in Vampire fighters since September 1943, and we had the larger engine, the Ghost, entering the testbed stage. We …
