50 years of jet service

Qantas, like all the world’s airlines in the mid-1950s, was looking at the jet with awe and apprehension. They held fantastic promise – the holy grail of flying – yet the risks were enormous as evidenced by the Comet disasters.

The British Government was relentless in its pressure to buy both Comet 4s the greatly improved model and the turbine-powered Britannia but Qantas’ technical team had serious reservations about payload and range for its route structure.