Men Who Killed Qantas - Matthew Benns [36]
In the 1950s Qantas had realised its propeller-powered Super Constellations would soon be outmatched by bigger and faster passenger jets. Chairman and Managing Director Hudson Fysh had seen the British-built de Havilland Comet I at the Farnborough Air Display in 1949 and been hugely impressed. ‘What a thing of beauty it was,’ he wrote.8 But it had serious shortcomings. Despite Qantas’s partner BOAC ordering the Comet, Fysh and the experts at Qantas did not believe the plane would work over the longer distances required for Australian routes.
His fears were then compounded by a series of Comet crashes. The first came in 1952 in Rome when a BOAC Comet failed to achieve full take-off and crashed at the end of the runway. It was followed by a Canadian Pacific Airlines Comet 1A crashing on take-off from Karachi on its delivery run to Sydney in 1953. All aboard were killed. Then a BOAC Comet broke up in the air in bad turbulence soon after take-off from Calcutta, and again all aboard were killed. In January 1954 a BOAC Comet crashed into the sea off the island of Elba and in April another Comet crashed into the sea at Naples. In those four accidents 24 crew and 85 passengers were killed, and after the fourth the Comet’s certificate of airworthiness was withdrawn. Tests found metal fatigue had led to the pressurised cabins collapsing. The Comet was modified and put back into service, but its reputation was damaged and de Havilland’s time advantage over the American passenger jet manufacturers was lost.
Meanwhile, Qantas was coming under increasing pressure from its competition. Pan American had ordered Boeing 707s and would be flying them by 1959. The new jets would easily leave the Super Connies trailing in their wake. The 707s travelled 200 kph faster and carried 120 passengers. Fysh had also been at the roll-out of the Boeing 707 in 1954 and was caught up in the possibilities of such a machine. At this time Qantas had the tough C. O. Turner as its general manager. He and Fysh had already clashed, but Turner’s shrewd analysis of figures, routes, operations and aircraft performance gelled well with the extremely technical knowledge of pilots such as Scotty Allan and Bert Ritchie, who would later go on to become chief executive himself. Turner pulled off a masterstroke of diplomacy in his dealings with Boeing. He personally called William Allen, the president of Boeing, and they struck up a rapport. It was a big deal at the time. One Qantas executive recalled that the mood of buying the new jets was ‘like a flea going to his bankers to buy his own dog’.9
When Qantas chose the Nadi to Honolulu route as crucial for its network, it needed changes to jet airliners to meet its needs. US aircraft manufacturer Douglas refused to change the specifications of its DC8, which had been built for the US domestic market. But Boeing agreed to shorten by 3.5 metres its standard 100 series 707 and equip it with the more powerful US military version of the Pratt & Whitney engine.
Turner and Qantas were convinced and in September 1956 the Australian government minister for civil aviation announced Qantas would buy seven Boeing 707-138 aircraft, making it the first non-US carrier to operate American jets. With its new aircraft, Qantas could carry 104 passengers at 880 kph from Sydney to London in 27 hours – a massive 21 hours faster than with the Super Connies. The flight from Sydney to San Francisco was cut from 28 hours to just 18. Cruising at 35,000 feet above sea level the 707 was also a great deal more comfortable because it was literally flying above most of the weather. The jets would become known as V-Jets – the title taken today by rival Virgin for its service across the Pacific from Australia to America.
In the 1960s the arrival of the Qantas 707 V-Jets heralded the arrival of the swinging jetset era, bringing Australia a lot closer to the rest of the world. Business people considered trips to Europe and North America viable, investors could come to Australia to look at opportunities and rock stars