de Havilland Comet 4 (1958)

The de Havilland Comet 1 was the world’s first jet airliner .First flown in 1949, it entered service with BOAC on 2 May 1952. Fifty percent faster than the most advanced propeller-driven airliners of the time, and with a cruising altitude of 42,000 feet (13,000 m), it flew  ‘above the weather’ giving a uniquely comfortable journey. The Comet was an instant success, and Britain seemed poised to dominate commercial aviation for the foreseeable future.

Then, in 1954, two Comets broke up in mid-air and crashed into the Mediterranean. All Comets were grounded, and the subsequent investigation showed that the crashes were due to metal fatigue, little understood at the time. A complete redesign created the Comet 4, bigger and with more powerful engines.

On 4 October 1958 two Comet 4s made the first scheduled transatlantic crossings by jet airliners. The Collection’s G-APDB made the Eastbound crossing in the then record time of 6 hours 12 minutes, half the time taken by the fastest piston-engined airliners. This was another British ‘first’ but just 22 days later Pan American put its new, bigger and faster Boeing 707s into service on the New York to Paris route. Britain’s lead had been lost and was never recovered. 74 Comet 4s were built, compared to over 1000 Boeings.

Comets continued to serve on the BOAC’s transatlantic services until mid-1960, then on other routes until BOAC finally retired its Comets in 1965. Second-hand Comets were popular with charter airlines and eventually independent airline Dan-Air bought all flyable Comet 4s, to make them its largest operator with 49 aircraft.

The last flight of a Comet was on 14 March 1997, but it had evolved into the Hawker Siddeley Nimrod, an RAF  maritime patrol aircraft that remained in service until 2011, over 60 years after the Comet’s first flight.

G-APDB was built at Hatfield and made its maiden flight on 27 July 1958 and was delivered to Heathrow on 12 September, making its historic transatlantic flight just four weeks later. Also in 1958,’ DB was used by the Duke of Edinburgh for his tour of Canada.

In September 1965, it was sold to Malaysian Singapore Airlines who used it until September 1969, when it was bought by independent airline Dan-Air and used mainly on holiday flights. Its last commercial flight was on 12 November 1973, from Alicante to Teesside Airport. In view of its history the directors of Dan-Air decided that it should be preserved, and it made its last flight to Duxford on 12 February 1974, the first member of the British Airliner Collection

In 2006 it was repainted in the BOAC livery it wore on its historic transatlantic flight in 1958. Until 2025 it was displayed in the IWM’s AirSpace hangar, but following their reorganisation of that exhibition is now part of the airliner line-up outside.