Jetrader - November/December 2013 - 26

The switch to the Rolls Royce Derwent engines turned out to have its advantages. The four Derwents
together generated more takeoff thrust than two Avons, so the requirement to take off from a
4,000-foot runway was more easily satisfied.

AJ65 engines then in development, but that
engine-later designated as the Avon-was
still on the UK military secret list and no
engineering data could be released, so the
Jetliner design switched to four Derwent
engines, derivatives of the engines used
on the Gloster Meteor ﬁghter.
The switch to the Derwent engines
turned out to have its advantages. First,
the four Derwents together generated more
takeoff thrust than two Avons, so the
requirement to take off from a 4,000-foot
runway was more easily satisﬁed. And in the
event of an engine failure on takeoff, the
four-engine version lost only 25 percent of
the thrust while the twin would have lost
50 percent. Moreover, in the event of an
engine breakdown at an airport with limited
repair facilities, the aircraft could make a
three-engine ferry ﬂight to a maintenance
base, while a twin would have been prohibited from making an engine-out ferry. In
fact, such a three-engine ferry would later
be used by the Jetliner when one engine was
damaged at Chicago Midway Airport while
on a sales demonstration tour in the U.S.

Trans-Canada Airlines Bails Out
Trans-Canada Airlines (TCA) turned out to
be a ﬁckle partner in the Jetliner enterprise,
never committing to any number of aircraft
but demanding a ﬁxed price for whatever

small quantity they might buy as well as
an agreement that the Jetliner could not
be sold to any other airline until three
years after TCA received their ﬁrst jet.
Nevertheless, engineering development at
Avro continued off-and-on with hopes the
contractual differences could be resolved.
By 1948, TCA decided they would like to
see a cruising speed of 500 mph, a range
with full payload of about 950 miles with
far greater fuel reserves than originally
speciﬁed, but even if these new targets
were met, they still would not commit to
buying the Jetliner, preferring to not be
the ﬁrst airline to operate a jet aircraft of
any kind. Consequently, the Jetliner would
have to ﬁnd its market elsewhere.

The Comet
While all this was going on, de Havilland
in the UK was designing a long-range jet
transport, expecting to ﬂy it in early 1949.
This, of course, was to be the Comet.
Actually, even though the Jetliner and
the Comet were contemporaries, they were
not really competitors. Although they were
roughly the same size, the Jetliner was
aimed at short- and medium-range markets typical of airline operations in North
America, whereas the Comet was being
designed with the United Kingdom in mind,
with its colonial possessions and overseas

26 The ofﬁcial publication of the International Society of Transport Aircraft Trading

Commonwealth dominions, so greater range
and higher speed were more imperative.
Nevertheless, both companies hoped to
capture the prestige of being the ﬁrst to
ﬂy a true jet transport.
As it turned out, the Comet was the
ﬁrst into the air, making its initial ﬂight
on 27 July 1949. The Jetliner followed just
13 days later on 10 August. We Canadians
sometimes point out that the Comet's ﬁrst
"flight" was just a short hop of about
500 yards and at less than about 5 feet
altitude before it settled back onto the
runway, while the Jetliner's ﬁrst ﬂight lasted
about an hour and reached 13,000 feet.
Truth be told, the Comet made a second
ﬂight later on the same day as its ﬁrst,
staying airborne for about half an hour.
In subsequent test flights, the performance envelope of the Jetliner was
expanded. It ﬂew to 30,000 feet, taking
just 22 minutes to get there. In later ﬂights
it was ﬂown at 36,000 feet and eventually
39,500 feet, and a level-ﬂight speed of
500 mph was demonstrated.

Marketing
Although much engineering test ﬂying
remained to be done, the pressure was on
Avro to get a marketing program going with
demonstration ﬂights to all the potential
customers. The kick-off was an invitation
from the mayor of New York to bring the
Jetliner to the SAE air show in New York in
April 1950. The Jetliner made the ﬁght from
Malton (now Pearson International Airport)
to Idlewild (now Kennedy International
Airport) in just 59 minutes. This was
obviously a speed record for any transport
aircraft and was also the first-ever jet
transport ﬂight into the U.S. The crew
members were whisked into Manhattan in
ofﬁcial limousines with a police motorcycle
escort for a gala reception. The New York
Times' front page the next day had a photo
with the story headline, "First Jet Liner
Seen Here, Flies From Toronto in Hour." The
sub-headline bore the startling revelation,
"Plane Has No Propellers."
Among the potential customers for the
Jetliner was American Airlines. The president
of American, C.R. Smith, known to everyone as "CR," sent his special assistant to
Toronto to look at the Jetliner, and shortly
afterward, CR and the special assistant
returned to take a ride in the airplane.
The special assistant was Dixon "Dix"

Jetrader - November/December 2013

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