BOEING 707 - America's First Jetliner

the dream of flying by jet airliner finally came true in the late 1950s and we're going to tell you the story of the legendary boeing 707 in this episode of celebrating aviation with mike michet the 707 was originally named the jet straddle liner we're going to talk about this airplane during commercial aviation's historic transition from props to jets boeing had been in the airliner business since 1928 its first model was the ada then in the 1930s came the model 247 an all-metal low-wing twin-engine airliner the model 307 followed this was the world's first pressurized airliner and you notice the wing and engines are based on the b-17 then came the model 314 flying boat which revolutionized air travel in the late 1930s and this covered the pacific and opened up air routes to europe over the atlantic from the east coast of the united states finally the last piston-powered airliner in boeing's family was the 377 strato cruiser this was the ultimate luxurious airplane with a lower deck lounge and the spiral staircase that appeared again in the 747 jumbo jet but in 1954 boeing had an airplane that revolutionized air travel forever the model 367-80 or just known as the dash 80. it was the prototype jet transport which became the 707. i've talked about the iconic gold cup roll where the 707 was rolled inverted over the city of seattle during the seattle seafair in 1955. i did a painting of it and there was a video on this painting and the story of how that all came together i will leave a link for that video at the end of this program the pilot of that amazing maneuver was tex johnston boeing's chief test pilot and he saw an opportunity to demonstrate the airplane over a crowd of three hundred thousand people and a bunch of airline executives that were on a boeing yacht anchored in lake washington he rolled the airplane not once but twice and the rumor was that he was called on the carpet and immediately fired by the president of boeing that wasn't the case the flight was made on sunday august 7 1955 and on monday morning a text was called into the office of bill allen seen here on the right boeing's president bill asked him tex what were you doing and johnston's reply was i was selling airplanes said allen you know you can do it now we know you can do it you don't ever have to do it again and boeing was on its way to becoming the premier and now only u.s manufacturer of commercial airliners by 1956 the company was starting to prepare promotional material for the airlines that had ordered the airplane and at that time it was still a five across uh cabin this was eventually widened to six across to compete with the douglas dc-8 the ground equipment for the 707 was extensive fuel trucks uh water injection trucks galley service it was really a full ramp of equipment and this is in the days before modern terminals and jet ways the blast of the engines was a serious problem and again in ram tight spaces near a terminal with the people boarding a jet another one next to it turning posed quite a problem the first 707 the model 120 flew in december of 1957. it was powered by fourteen thousand pound thrust pratt whitney jt3a turbo jets it had a range of 3000 miles so the dream finally came true and here we see the twa 707 and this is called a 131 each airline had its own code number so the technical designation of this airplane is a 707 120 for twa it's a 707 131 rolling out of the final assembly building on a typical rainy day in seattle but a beautiful airplane the color scheme was designed by raymond loewy and as one pilot described it the jet looked like it was doing 600 miles an hour just sitting on the ground american was another early customer their number was 23 so this is a 707 123 and pan am was the original launch customer of the airplane and there was their number is 21 so this is a 707 121 but it's the original configuration of the airplane and pan am was the first to put it into operation at that time there was a race uh across the atlantic which which country in which airline would be the first to have uh transatlantic jet service and the british comet 4 which was a evolution of the original comet 1 which first flew in 1952 [Music] actually won that race on saturday october 4th 1958. here we see it at idlewild kind of a prophetic photo with the lockheed constellation on the other side of the blast fence but the comet arrived on that morning and not to be outdone pan-american president juan tripp ordered a 707 parked at the gate next to where the comet landed this is the international rivals building or iab at idlewild if you look on the right you see a crowd of many hundreds if not thousands of people that had turned out to see the first jets in the world land at the airport and my family was amongst that crowd it was a momentous day and something i'll never forget i was 11 years old my father took this photo rather ironic that the dc-7 is taking off in the background but i will tell you aside from smelling kerosene for the first time on an airport ramp and of course the roar of the crowd and the roar of the engines it was like seeing a spaceship it was just the the beginning of the future it was just a momentous day to put it in perspective this is what a ramp looked like that year you've got this elegant lockheed twa super g constellation and dc-7s on the other side of the ramp and this was a typical scene at an airport so look at this machine by comparison really advanced on october 26th pan am flew their first jet flight from new york to paris and this is an interesting trivia question what was the first airline to fly a scheduled jet service within the united states the answer will surprise you it was national now for your airliner guys out there you're going to say national nashville flew dc-8s well they did about a year later but in december of 1958 they worked out an amazing deal with pan am to what lease the 707 and here's how it worked pan am flew in from europe in the morning national took the airplane to miami from new york and again this is the winter time just before the holidays they arrived there after lunch turned the airplane around came back to new york by dinner time and pan am then took the airplane to europe in the evening what a neat arrangement the airports of the future hadn't been built yet this is lax in a rendering and this airport was still a year or two away so what that meant was that the jets had to operate on the original ramps from the old terminals and this proved uh challenging again you had all that ground equipment and here's what it looked like in operation you had a fuel truck under each wing the water truck at the trailing edge of the left wing why did it need a water truck this wasn't for the galley this was five thousand gallons pumped into the engines during takeoff for boosting the thrust and we're going to see the result of that in a few moments the jet blast as i mentioned was a serious problem with one engine opera one airplane operating and passengers boarding an adjacent airplane so the solution was to park the jet at the end of what they call the sheep run or the finger of the terminal here's lax in 1959 and they put the 707 at the all the way at the end so that they could tow it out onto a taxiway start the engines and taxi it out for takeoff so that meant you would walk out on the ramp and go up the boarding stairs from the top of the stairs you'd turn around and look back at that ramp it was all piston-powered airplanes again this is 1959. it may seem odd but there were times when there would be one or two jets per day at each of these major airports in the very beginning of jet travel and here we see the first to take off for the first transcontinental u.s flight by jet an american airlines 707 from lax to new york and this photo was taken from imperial boulevard on what is today called spotter's hill it's a beautiful overlook of lax but you notice in 1959 there wasn't much there you remember i'd mentioned the water truck this is the result this is thick acrid black smoke that would uh pour out of those engines uh on takeoff and in those days everybody looked at and said well it's a jet that's what they look like and i have to tell you also uh this is a six degree climb out angle compared to the piston airliners three degrees this airplane looked like it was going straight up it's all relative when it landed in new york the 707 parked on the other side of where you see the twa connie at the end of that sheep run far away from the the other prop liners american operated from the north end of the old terminal twa had their jets parked out on the ramp on the south end very different than what it looks like today the international flights arrived at the iab or international rivals building and you see the new tower there at idlewild i should mention idlewild became jfk uh in 1963. the 707 120 could fly to europe non-stop eastbound if the winds were right but on the return leg it had to stop either at shannon ireland or gander newfoundland to refuel to make it into new york it also had five cockpit crew members all men in those days a pilot a co-pilot a flight engineer a radio operator and a navigator for international travel quite different than today so what do these airplanes have in common with the boeing 707 well they all share the same engine the military derivation as the j-57 and from upper left you have the north american f-100 super saber the convair f-102 delta dagger at bottom left the vaught f8 crusader and the douglas f4d sky ray all used the j57 engine the military version of the 707 power plant in 1958 the 707 320 series or the intercontinental made its first flight and this became again this was a game changer this became the first airplane to be able to go in both directions non-stop over the atlantic it was powered by uh 18 000 pound thrust pratt whitney jt4a turbojets and it had a range of 4000 miles here we see an air france 707 320. you can see the slightly different shape of the engine to cells and pylons and these are the airplanes that shared that engine the military version was the j75 from upper left the republic f-105 thunder chief convair f-106 delta dart lower left north american f107 prototype and oh wait that looks like an sr-71 but it's the a12 it's the ship one the very first prototype used by the cia before the air force created the sr-71 and the first prototype of that airplane was flown with pratt would need j75s because the j-58 engine that became operational was not fully ready yet so please don't write any comments i know the blackbird was powered by the uh the j58 but the prototype flew with j75s a unique version of the 707 was built for qantas to be able to give the airplane range to across the pacific and this was the model 138 used only by this airline what they did is they shortened the fuselage by 10 feet but gave it the upgraded engines and so this gave it a much greater range the last in the series of original 707s was the 420 which is the same as a 320 intercontinental but powered by rolls-royce conway engines and the final member of the family a smaller brother to the 707 the 720. this was nine feet shorter than the standard airplane but was much lighter in weight and had a slightly different wing this allowed operations from shorter runways in smaller towns and this became boeing's medium-range jetliner the first in the concept of building a family of airplanes that eventually included the 727 737 and so on the 720 had a unique outer pylon it didn't have the turbo compressor that you see on the inboard pylon and here we see it with the straight turbo jet but then came the turbofan the jt3d and this was an upgraded engine allowed more thrust it was quieter you notice it doesn't need the noise suppressors you saw on the original version and it was just an all-around improvement in every way this is a twa airplane and their marketing name was dynafan engine and there it is the boeing 707 this is a 131b and the ultimate 707 the 320 this is a c model for cargo and technically it's a cf convertible freighter it's got the freight door it can be used as an all-freight airplane and it could be converted to a passenger configuration six across for military charter which is exactly what i flew on this very airplane from travis air force base in san francisco to yokota air base in japan when i was in the air force beautiful machine this also also became the basis for the military variants of the 707 and by the way that's not the kc-135 the fastest and largest jetliner to europe the dream of an intercontinental jetliner came true there's the 707 320. oh you remember that american flight from lax taking off on runway two five well here's a photo taken from approximately that same place and here's what lax looks like today it's ironic that in the background is the terminal for american airlines all this progress was made possible by a revolutionary airplane the boeing 707 and there you have it the story of an amazing machine that changed air travel forever thank you for celebrating aviation with mike mishat and as always special thanks to the great folks and organizations that made this video possible we hope you enjoyed the presentation and until next time take care you

Channel: Celebrating Aviation with Mike Machat

Views: 96,595

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Id: E8OlzC2Nmsc

Length: 17min 7sec (1027 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 10 2021