Well, they didn't manage to get it to work. One of the biggest problems was that it was built extremely lightly to enable cruising in the stratosphere.
So lightly that it was beginning to show fatigue cracking in its structure during test flights.
And then the Brabazon Mk.II got the coupled Proteus turboprop engines, which nobody ever managed to get working. (The Proteus also contributed significantly to the failure of the Saunders Roe Princess flying boat.)
The Brabazon did have the first all-powered controls and all-electric engine controls, and high-pressure hydraulics.
It wasn't all loss, though, as some of the technology developed for the Brabazon ended up in the Bristol Britannia, which was fairly successful.
We shouldn't want to do stupid things like that. It was out of date (cf. Boeing 707), over-priced and would have required all new infrastructure. Am still to be convinced that the A380 will be any better suited to commercial traffic.
3 comments:
Why can't Britain do this sort of thing anymore? You are a big, rich country.
By the way, the window openings are rounded (no sharp corners). Did someone forget to tell Comet?w
Well, they didn't manage to get it to work. One of the biggest problems was that it was built extremely lightly to enable cruising in the stratosphere.
So lightly that it was beginning to show fatigue cracking in its structure during test flights.
And then the Brabazon Mk.II got the coupled Proteus turboprop engines, which nobody ever managed to get working. (The Proteus also contributed significantly to the failure of the Saunders Roe Princess flying boat.)
The Brabazon did have the first all-powered controls and all-electric engine controls, and high-pressure hydraulics.
It wasn't all loss, though, as some of the technology developed for the Brabazon ended up in the Bristol Britannia, which was fairly successful.
We shouldn't want to do stupid things like that. It was out of date (cf. Boeing 707), over-priced and would have required all new infrastructure. Am still to be convinced that the A380 will be any better suited to commercial traffic.
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