Google has uploaded scans of all of the old weekly LIFE magazines (1936 - 1972), and I've enjoyed skimming through them.
The editorials are unfailingly fair-minded, the ads are sometimes cringeworthy (I don't know whether to laugh or cry at some of them), and it's fascinating to read cutting-edge technology stories with the benefit of almost 70 years of hindsight.
https://books.google.ca/books?id=T0gEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA34&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=false
This story looks at the development of the Boeing 707, and compares it to Great Britain's de Havilland Comet. The 707 was larger, had greater passenger capacity, and was faster, but was much more expensive. The 707 no doubt used more fuel, but the cost per passenger-mile might have been cheaper. At the time of publication, one Comet had crashed, but there was no good evidence yet of mechanical failure. No one at that time knew how Boeing's gamble would turn out.
It was later found that stress cracks had started around the Comet's square windows. Quickly rectified, but in the public's mind the Comet would forever be considered unsafe.
Interestingly, Nevil Shute's brilliant novel No Highway In The Sky dealt with exactly that - the Reindeer, an advanced British passenger aircraft, had crashed, and the nerdy researcher who had predicted that the cause was metal fatigue was vindicated. It's a great read. Interestingly, I'd always assumed the book was based on Comet accidents, but actually the book had been published some six years before.
I'd love to see the movie some day:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Highway_in_the_Sky
And of course the 707 went on to dominate its class for some years.
The editorials are unfailingly fair-minded, the ads are sometimes cringeworthy (I don't know whether to laugh or cry at some of them), and it's fascinating to read cutting-edge technology stories with the benefit of almost 70 years of hindsight.
https://books.google.ca/books?id=T0gEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA34&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=2#v=onepage&q&f=false
This story looks at the development of the Boeing 707, and compares it to Great Britain's de Havilland Comet. The 707 was larger, had greater passenger capacity, and was faster, but was much more expensive. The 707 no doubt used more fuel, but the cost per passenger-mile might have been cheaper. At the time of publication, one Comet had crashed, but there was no good evidence yet of mechanical failure. No one at that time knew how Boeing's gamble would turn out.
It was later found that stress cracks had started around the Comet's square windows. Quickly rectified, but in the public's mind the Comet would forever be considered unsafe.
Interestingly, Nevil Shute's brilliant novel No Highway In The Sky dealt with exactly that - the Reindeer, an advanced British passenger aircraft, had crashed, and the nerdy researcher who had predicted that the cause was metal fatigue was vindicated. It's a great read. Interestingly, I'd always assumed the book was based on Comet accidents, but actually the book had been published some six years before.
I'd love to see the movie some day:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Highway_in_the_Sky
And of course the 707 went on to dominate its class for some years.
