3

AIRCRAFT
CHARACTERISTICS

3.1 THE EARLY YEARS OF JET TRANSPORT

Shortly after the end of World War II, the airline industry was able to use civilian
versions of wartime transport aircraft to meet a rapidly expanding market for air
travel. The war itself was partly responsible for the broader interest in air travel.
The advance in aircraft technology, particularly, the gas turbine engine,
revolutionized the industry, and set the stage for a tradition of steady technological
change in the decade that followed. Thus, entering the post World War II period,
new technologies were available, and an extensive skill base of aeronautical
engineers and flying personnel existed. Major production facilities were in place
and a base of public acceptance for air travel had been created. 1 The development
of the jet aircraft, commercial as well as military, overlaps the period of the
piston-engined planes. Design of the Boeing B-47 began in late 1943. Douglas
began design of the XB-43, essentially a modification of the XB-42, in 1944.
Convair's XB-46 design was also initiated in 1944. There had been interest in jets
before, but no commercial firms in the United States had had sufficient interest and
resources to take the lead in jet engine development. Thus, it is quite clear that so
far as the United States manufacture of either military or commercial planes were
concerned, jet development had to wait until the development of technology
overcame the early obstacles. It is not clear when research on the specific
commercial transports by United States manufacturers began. Boeing quite
certainly was studying alternative models to the C-97 as early as 1950. By the
I. L. Pitt et al., Economics of the U.S. Commercial Airline Industry: Productivity, Technology
and Deregulation © Springer Science+Business Media New York 1999
42 Pitt and Norsworthy

middle of 1952, Douglas had a full-scale mock-up of a jet transport with a 35

degree swept-back wing. This erroneously convinced some that Douglas had a
clear lead in the jet transport field at the time. By the end of the same year, Boeing
had started work on a flying prototype of its jet transport, eventually to be known
as the Boeing 707. By 1953, Boeing's lead over Douglas in jet transportation was
generally acknowledged. The Boeing 707 prototype flew in December 1957; the
DC-8 was flown in May 1958 after an accelerated development program that began
in 1955 and eventually cost $215 million. The development of the both the DC-8
and the Boeing 707 involved major outlays of R&D expenditures by the respective
companies. 2 The development of the DC-8 and the Boeing 707 were of profound
importance in terms of speed, range, seating capacity, flying altitude and average
fare. For example, we see in Table 3.1 that between 1926 and 1990, speed
increased almost five and a half fold. We also see dramatic increases in range and
payload from 400 miles to 7,000 miles and 12 seats to 450 seats respectively. The
cost of travel also dropped dramatically from a $1 to about $0.10 a mile. This
reduction in the cost of air transportation created a huge demand for airline travel. 3

Table 3.1 Stimulus to Air Travel by Time Period

Average
Speed Range Altitude Fare
ERA Technology (mph) (miles) Seats (feet) (SImile)

1926-1936 Ford Tri-Motor 100 400 12 8,000 $1.00

1937-1946 DC-3 175 700 21 12,000 $0.60
1948-1958 DC-6B 300 1,800 60 22,000 $0.30
1959-1969 Boeing 707 550 3,600 110 35,000 $0.20
1970-1980 Boeing 747 550 6,000 450 35,000 $0.15
1980-1990 Deregulation 550 7,000 450 35,000 $0.10

Source: Boeing Commercial AiIplane Group, Current Market Outlook (1992), Seattle, Washington,
Sections I-S.

However, an immediate stimulus to the United States manufacture of

commercial aircraft was the technological advantage of the British in developing
the DeHavilland Comet I. The Comet entered service in 1952, six years before the
Boeing 707 began service and orders by international carriers were heavy. To a
degree the subsequent roles of Boeing and Douglas in the commercial jet market
were enhanced by the well-publicized structural fatigue that the first Comet
suffered. 4 Indeed, it was the British who introduced the first jet transport, the
Comet (equipped with centrifugal-type engines rather than the more effective axial
flow type, which would become the industry standard) into air service in 1952.
The Comet went directly into production without a prototype. It was sold to British,