Aircraft

The de Havilland Comet

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Today’s video is a promo video of the de Havilland Comet. This one is one of those classic news real type footage of a real classic jet. Launched in 1949 the Comet was the first passenger jet plane and was tipped to be the next big thing, sadly today it is often forgotten about, thanks to the dominance of Boeing. What went wrong was a series of accidents caused by the planes tearing apart in mid flight, the stress fractures were traced back to the design of the large square windows and by the time de Havilland managed to get its aircraft back in the air with modified windows, Boeing had already gained a strong foothold in the jet airline business with it’s 707. Boeing had learned from the Comets mistakes while the Comet lost consumer confidence. The Military version known as the Hawker Siddeley Nimrod is still in use until 2020. Only a handful of Comets survive today a good example is at the RAF Museum in Cosford in the UK, it’s the only Comet 1 in existence. A Comet 4 is also under restoration for future display at the excellent Museum of flight in Washingtion.

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The Spruce Goose

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The H-4 Hercules was an aircraft built by Howard Hughes during world war 2, The idea behind it was to ship large amount of cargo across the Atlantic safely above German war ships. The whole project ran overtime and over budget and by the time the only prototype flew in 1947 the war was over and funding was cancelled. The media nicknamed the plane the Spruce Goose because of this and the fact that it was made of wood as there was no metal available because of the war. Howard Hughes hated the nickname and set it out on its only flight just to prove a point, amazingly for a prototype aircraft of its age and huge size it remain cared for and in hidden storage until 1980 where it spent some time next to the Queen Mary. Since 1995 its home has been the Evergreen Aviation Museum in McMinnville, Oregon which is an hour southwest of Portland. The museum has a good range of other aircraft that are well worth checking out too.

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Russia’s Konkordski

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The Concorde is often regarded as the pinnacle of aircraft design, its supersonic speed outstrips any passenger aircraft built today. There was also a Russian version that the media dubbed KonKordski, allegedly built from stolen plans the Russian TU-144 was very similar with a few changes like its mini wings known as canards near the front of the craft. In some respects it was better than the Concorde as it beat it to a maiden flight, was a tad faster and held a few more people. It suffered a bad reputation after crashing at the 1973 Paris airshow, a 1978 crash sealed the fate of the aircraft and permanent passenger service never resumed despite TU-144’s still being built up until 1984. Today a good example of the TU-144 can be found at the Auto & Technikmuseum at Sinsheim in Germany sitting next to a Concorde, hit the next page for a video of the plane being transported to the museum.

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The Airbus 380 Super Jumbo

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The first commercial flights of the Airbus 380 has commenced with Singapore Airlines taking the first delivery. Our photo shows one of the prototype Airbus 380’s decked out in Qantas paintwork visiting Melbourne Australia on one of it’s test flights. The new Airbus has revolutionized travel with luxury and comfort never before seen on an aircraft. The Singapore Airlines plane even offers suites to its first class guests, where travelers have full size beds, a cinema style television and even an area for office work. So far Airbus has 177 orders for this massive double decker plane and Qantas, Emirates and Singapore Airlines are among the lucky few expected to receive their new jets in 2008.

A Concorde up a pole

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Transeum is more than just cars, its all things transport so we thought it was about time we featured a plane, and there is no better than the majestic Concorde. The Concorde was the first and only supersonic passenger jet, although the Russians nearly had one working, we will feature that in a few days time. There were only 16 production Concordes ever produced all being flown by either British Airways or Air France. Today most of the Concordes are on display at museums or airports around the world after their grounding a few years back. F-BVFB the 7th Concorde to be produced made her maiden flight in March 1976 and today stands proudly at the Sinsheim Auto & Technik Museum, South West Germany an hour or so’s drive from Stuttgart. The museum is an amazing transport center with all types of cars, boats, military machinery, planes and jets. The two biggest draw cards are the Concorde and the Russian Tupolev TU-144.