Jets

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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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.