AVIATION: Too Little, Too Late

When Eastern Air Lines’ Captain Eddie Rickenbacker offered to pay $100 million for 35 Comet jet transports (TIME, Sept. 8), it seemed to be a golden opportunity for the British to grab a big chunk of the U.S. commercial plane market. But last week it looked as if the British had muffed

the opportunity. Captain Eddie insisted

that he had to have the Comets by 1956.

Comet Builder de Havilland said that he

could not turn out that many before 1957.

That was too late for Rickenbacker.

Right now he is modernizing Eastern’s

fleet with 30 new Super-Constellations,

the last 16 of which will have Curtiss-Wright compound engines, giving the

Connie enough speed and range to match

flight time with present Comets over long

hauls. By 1956, Rickenbacker will have

this whole fleet paid for and will be ready

for his next big move, which he thinks is

into either jets or turboprops. He wants

to make the move soon enough to get, and

keep, a lead on his U.S. rivals.

As far as Rickenbacker is concerned, the present Comet is too small. Nor does he want the faster 44-passenger Comet II, scheduled for limited production next year, although he is willing to buy a couple to test on the New York-Puerto Rico run. Rickenbacker wanted De Havilland to jump ahead to the 60-to-75-passenger Comet III, whose prototype has not yet even been built. Said Rickenbacker: “If I were an Englishman, I would work day and night—including weekends—to keep the advantage they have.” De Havilland’s reply: it cannot boost commercial production and meet its rearmament quotas. Then, said Rickenbacker, it ought to license a U.S. maker who can mass-produce the Comet III. Echoed London’s Daily Mail: “Britain . . . will have to scrap the outworn ideas and practices which have been hampering her industries since the end of the war. If we go dawdling along as if it didn’t matter much anyway, we shall deservedly lose a chance that will not be presented again.”

The truth of that warning lay in the fact that the U.S., which had trailed the British in jet engines, is fast catching up. While the British have only limited production of their best jet engines, Pratt & Whitney is now ready to mass-produce its powerful J-57; Westinghouse is getting ready to do the same with its J40 (see below). And while U.S. plane builders have built no jet transports, they are gathering plenty of experience with the big jet bombers like Boeing’s 6-47 and 6-52. If the British cannot take advantage of their transport lead now, U.S. builders may soon overtake them.