de Havilland Comet First Flight May 2, 1952

[pinehilljoe]

74 years ago today, the Comet flew its first commercial flight powered by four Ghost engines. Frank Whittle's dream of the commercial jet flight era began.

 

[Admiral Beez]

74 years ago today, the Comet flew its first commercial flight powered by four Ghost engines. Frank Whittle's dream of the commercial jet flight era began.

Why the Brits thought to put rectangular windows on a pressure vessel will always flummox me. Had the Comet had the same oval windows as 1948's Vickers Viscount the aircraft would have had continued success.

 

[EwenS]

Why the Brits thought to put rectangular windows on a pressure vessel will always flummox me. Had the Comet had the same oval windows as 1948's Vickers Viscount the aircraft would have had continued success.

The point of failure on G-ALYP was found to be the apertures in the fuselage roof for the ADF system and not the windows. From Wiki.

"Square window myths
Despite findings of the Cohen Inquiry, a number of myths have evolved around the cause of the Comet 1's accidents. Most commonly quoted are the 'square' passenger windows. While the report noted that stress around fuselage cut-outs, emergency exits and windows was found to be much higher than expected due to De Havilland's assumptions and testing methods[122]​ the passenger windows' shape has been commonly misunderstood and cited as a cause of the fuselage failure. In fact the mention of 'windows' in the Cohen report's conclusion refers specifically to the origin point of failure in the ADF Antenna cut-out 'windows', located above the cockpit, not passenger windows.[123]​ The shape of the passenger windows was not indicated in any failure mode detailed in the accident report and was not viewed as a contributing factor."

It continues:-
A number of other pressurised airliners of the period including the Boeing 377 Stratocruiser, Douglas DC-7, and DC-8 had larger and more 'square' windows than the Comet 1, and experienced no such failures.[124]​ In fact, the Comet 1's window general shape resembles a slightly larger Boeing 737 window mounted horizontally. They are rectangular not square, have rounded corners and are within 5% of the radius of the Boeing 737 windows and virtually identical to modern airliners.[124]​ Paul Withey, Professor of Casting at the University of Birmingham School of Metallurgy states in a video presentation delivered in 2019, analysing all available data that: "The fact that DeHavilland put oval windows into later marks, is not because of any 'squareness' of the windows that caused failure."[125]​ "DeHavilland went to oval windows on the subsequent Marks because it was easier to Redux them in (use adhesive) – nothing to do with the stress concentration and it's purely to remove rivets." (from the structure)[126]​

 

[pinehilljoe]

Why the Brits thought to put rectangular windows on a pressure vessel will always flummox me. Had the Comet had the same oval windows as 1948's Vickers Viscount the aircraft would have had continued success.

This may be being wise well after the event.