Hood said:
Sealordlawrence,
You seem somewhat biased in favour of the 707 over the VC-7 and somewhat pessimistic about the entire British aircraft industry. If the government was as disturbed as you claim about the state of the industry then why didn't they do more to enforce logical planning and resource management on a wider scale. I don't doubt your arguments over scale of the potential British orders over US, that is what made making export-worthy aircraft more essential if the British firms were to survive.
Your argument that BOAC as a profit-making company chose the 707 purely for commercial reasons because it was the best choice seems rather false when you look at the timeframe. Likewise the development of the 707 does not show a risk-free development and does not seem to indicate that Boeing was confident over its success. At one point it thought the airlines would never buy the 707.
TWA's president was quoted as saying around 1954, "Civil jets? Not for another ten years." PanAm's Trippe was also pessimistic "Passengers are unlikely to be attracted by jets." The American outlook at the time was that the Comet was uneconomic and that in general all jet-powered airliners would be. Although that attitude soon changed it shows not all airlines were intially happy about jet liners and I guess BOAC was not over-enthusiastic either.
Now lets look at some dates. The VC.7 cancellation was 11th Nov 1955, at that time the planned first flight was June 56 with entry into service late 1959/60.
The Boeing 367-80 prototype first flew on 15 July 1954 and although configured for cargo could fit 130 passenger seats on rails in the cabin and had a range of 3,530 miles.
On 5th October 1954 the USAF ordered 29 KC-135A. The fuselage had to be widened from the 367-80 diameter and the first KC-135A first flew 31 August 1956. That is nine months after the VC.7 was cancelled.
It was not until 13 July 1955 that the USAF cleared Boeing to develop the commercial 707, only four months before the VC-7 was cancelled.
Douglas already had the DC-8 planned on paper and had 132in dia body and was bigger, faster and longer-ranged than the 707. In September 1955 PanAm signed for 25 DC-8. Boeing was forced by PanAm and American to widen the fuselage a second time from the KC-135 diameter to 138in (the VC-7 was designed with 150in diameter) and Panam in October signed for 6 707-21 but still felt the DC-8 was superior. In November 1955 American signed for 30 but the DC-8 had transatlantic range and the 707 did not (without stopping). So ironically only at the same time as the VC.7 was cancelled did Boeing begin developing the Intercontinental and on 24 Dec 1955 PanAm signed for 15 Intercontientals. Only then did the orders flood in for the 707 (7 airlines for 98 DC-8 and 6 airlines for 75 707 by the end of 1955). FAA certification for 707-100 was 18 Sept 1958.
The first Intercontential (189 pass) with JT4A jets flew 11 Jan 59 and in August entered PanAm service.
BOAC ordered 15 (later inc 16 plus 2 for BOAC-Cunard) Interconitentials with 17,500lb Mk 508 Conway engines on 24 April 1956 as " an exceptional measure" due to having "no alternative". Very odd when you consider Vickers had a transatlantic Conway powered airliner under construction only four months earlier and when the DC-8 was also able to fit the bill.
BOAC suddenly changed their position, the Interconential was only developed from November 1955 so BOAC knew that there was no alternative to the VC.7 before that date and surely couldn't have known the 707 would be a success when the basic 707-100 wouldn't enter service until late 1958 and when the Intercontinental was still on paper (and awaiting more powerful JT4A turbojets). Indeed the first commerical-variant 707-100 didn't fly for the first time until 20 December 1957, two years after the VC.7 was cancelled. As we have seen the 367-80 was no more than a flying shell and not even to the same standards as the KC-135 or 707, both of which were successively larger variants. Boeing found it embarrassing to have to redesign and retool twice and indeed hadn't built an airliner since the 377 Stratoliner. BOAC was following the Boeing bandwagon that eventually overtook DC-8 orders but Boeing was scared the DC-8 would scupper the 707. The existence of a third long-range airliner like the VC.7 might have tipped the balance with some of the other foreign exports, airlines that brought British over American etc, history isn't written in stone. Events have impacts on other events, it is likely Boeing and Douglas breathed sighs of relief when it was a two-way struggle.
The first BOAC 707 flew 20 May 1959 but was refused British certification due to possible over-rotation and inadequate directional stability and despite the potential political embarrassment Boeing was forced to raise the fin and add a ventral fin to all 707s. Finally on 27 April 1960 UK certification was issued.
Hi Hood,
Have read with interest your incisive scholarly contribution.
I am not sure about BOAC not trusting RR to deliver the Conway with higher enough thrust?
Bristol considered that the competition would need six engine aircraft to make them viable that was true if one did not have to lengthen every civil runway in the world bar two.
Originally I thought the Continental/Domestic variant too large but on reflection comparing with the Third generation Boeing 727-200 is very revealing.
What you may not have been aware off was that the VC 7 Continental (BEA) could have operated from smaller airfields than the 727. The VC7 (BEA) only needed 4,500ft to fifty feet take-off giving greater flexibility of operation from available airfields.
Its large wing was an asset allowing for air frame growth or enabled it to reach an economical cruising altitude more quickly and with a very high cruising speed some 517 knots at 25,000ft at maximum continuous cruise power to have a shorter block time. With the later marks of engine one assumes potentially slightly higher?
The original Boeing 727 -100 was very heavily influenced by UK work but it was soon realised on the question of size that even greater capacity was useful.
The standard VC7 fuselage with 40inch pitch seating is shown in drawings for the BEA variant to accommodate 155 passengers. A high density version no doubt could have accommodated 180~190 passengers for package holiday flights.
The VC7 aircraft variants were basically the same except the variant offered to BEA needed less fuel because of its lesser range requirement so with capacity load and maximum range it’s
weight was about the same as the Boeing 727-200.
One could imagine that with an airframe already designed to cope with a maximum potential
290,000lb when the market developed a “simple” stretched version could have doubled the passenger capacity of the first VC7 this is why I was originally drawing a comparison with the VC10.
The weight issue was never a problem. It was presented as such by the engine performance constraints imposed by the MoS at the behest of the “masters” to justify cancellation.
Derek Wood refers to it but he wrote before the thirty year rule revealed the truth.
With the MoS contrived figures the V1000 was expected to reach just over 230,000lb AUW.
Vickers did request a mere 3,500lb increase to allow a common airframe for all the variants giving maximum increase in all up weight to some 290,000lb.
Given this fact the figures in the archive give a range of 3,475 n.miles (30knot Headwind + 20% Reserve) one assumes with the maximum number of 151 passengers for the Trans -Atlantic route?
When in November 1955 Vickers Armstrong disclosed publically VC7 figures they gave appear to be limited to 247,000lb maximum AUW and give a still air range of 4,800 nautical miles about 5,500 statute miles.
They had the carrot of the Vanguard contract and if you did not conform no more contracts.
Edwards toed the line again five years later when Macmillan wanted the Space Programme cut and so Vickers kept the VC10 contract.
In the archives Vickers are given positive encouragement at the start to make the payload range as large as possible for the V1000.
