How Boeing beat the Brits: ‘Jet Age’ outlines dawn of modern air travel - Entertainment, Books - Navy Times

How Boeing beat the Brits: ‘Jet Age’ outlines dawn of modern air travel

The years immediately following Britain’s victory in World War II were unkind to the island nation. Rationing seemed as if it would never end; Britons suffered through the coldest winter in memory; and the empire on which the sun would never set was dissolving ever so quickly.

Amid the gloom, there was one great source of pride: Britain’s leadership in the development of a commercial jetliner that would usher in a new era in air travel. The de Havilland Comet — a sleek, bullet-shaped plane with its four engines tucked into its wings — made its debut in 1952 and was the odds-on favorite to be the first to fly passengers across the Atlantic.

That was before three Comets blew apart in the sky in less than a year. As the aircraft maker scrambled to determine the cause of the mysterious explosions, Boeing entered the competition, in effect betting that a company that thrived on military contracts could reinvent itself by developing passenger jets.

The race between the U.S., also represented by Douglas and Lockheed, and Britain is brought to life in Sam Howe Verhovek’s fast-paced book, “Jet Age: The Comet, the 707, and the Race to Shrink the World.” The book captures the zeitgeist of a decade in which all manner of advances, including globe-girdling flight, seemed possible.

The leaders of the rival plane-makers were Boeing President Bill Allen, a mild-mannered lawyer with scant background in aviation who oversaw the development of what became the 707, and Geoffrey de Havilland, a legendary aircraft designer whose loss of two sons in accidents aboard his company’s planes could not quell his determination to see British jetliners dominate the skies.

Other key figures include the colorful test pilots who helped market the aura of jet travel; the British aeronautics professor whose investigation uncovered the cause of the Comet explosions; and the airline chieftains, including Pan American’s Juan Trippe and TWA’s Howard Hughes, whose orders for planes would determine the outcome of the competition.

Verhovek, a veteran newsman, sets the stage for his story by sharing the colorful history of the dawn of commercial flight. He describes the high death toll among pilots whose planes went down during the early years of air mail; the wretched passenger conditions such as wooden-slat seating in extreme heat and cold; and the earliest stewardesses, who were required to be registered nurses.

By contrast, the dawn of the jet age was a time of glamour, elegance and excitement, when passengers would don their finest clothes before boarding.

“Jet Age” is a quick read, one that can be completed in the time it takes to wait in a terminal, board a jet and cross an ocean. It’s a book that is likely to prompt some readers to delve more deeply into this fascinating subject.