The Failure of the De Havilland Comet Aircraft :: Aerospace Technology Aircrafts Essays

The Failure of the De Havilland Comet AircraftFollowing World War II and the jet engine technology that emerged largely toward its end, aerospace engineers knew well that the technology had great potential for use in the commercial aviation industry. The Comet was the first aircraft to utilize jet propulsion however, its designers failed to consider the metallurgy of the aircrafts materials under dodging conditions or the consequences of their atypical window design. The aircraft was designed by Britains De Havilland Aircraft Company and entered service in May 1952. After a year of service, however, the design issues mentioned preceding(prenominal) resulted in the failure of several Comet aircraft. Extensive evaluations revealed that repeated pressurization stress on the aircrafts main cabin had caused its structure to fail. At the time when Comet set outment had begun, De Havilland was conscious(predicate) that Boeing and other leading aircraft manufacturers were also considering jet-driven planes. If De Havilland could build the first jetliner, not only the company but Britain itself could be poised to lead the aerospace industry. With 90% of airline passengers everyplace traveling on Boeing aircraft in 1939 according to Pushkar, R.G. (2002), the British government had been anxious for a development such as the Comet and supported the project enthusiastically. Pressure to develop the Comet before other companies could release their own jetliners likely contributed to some testing negligence at De Havilland. The British Overseas Airways Corporation ordered 14 Comet 1s at 450,000 each as soon as the aircrafts design had been decided upon (History Heads The Comet cover-up), and this was a significant incentive for De Havilland to complete the Comet safely and swiftly. If the BOAC placed so much confidence in De Havillands product and other airlines could witness the aircrafts success, this would garner tremendous support for the Comet an d De Havilland overseas. In its design of the Comet, De Havilland used ii nonstandard design techniques that contributed significantly to the aircraft failures. The first was that the company heavily employed Redux metal-to-metal bonding in which a strong, light aluminum alloy was quick-frozen to the frame of the aircraft with a very strong adhesive during the Redux process. The engineers based their decision to use that technique primarily on the fact that the Comets sign design had a large weight and that its four Ghost engines, also built by De Havilland, could not support it with their thrust.