From the dawn of the U.S. jet age

Found this neat Pan Am promo film from 1959 extolling the virtues of the 707 (though some DC-8s show up near the end).

Notice how well everyone is dressed, even the mechanics! And everyone is smoking. The airport was still Idlewild, there was no Worldport yet and no jetways, and a four-man cockpit crew! No luggage being carried on board, and of course they only show first class.

Still, it was seeing one of these, maybe this very aircraft, flying over my Long Island house that same year, that ultimately made me an aeronautical engineer! Thank you, Pan American.

 

Unfortunately, the aircraft highlighted in the video, N709PA (though 710 and 711 also appear), was destroyed in Maryland four years later after being struck by lightning.

 

Watching that promo gushing over the wonderful new airplane kept me thinking about the hundreds of hours of overtime and the hundreds of drawings that went into putting that 707 together. It was a strenuous tense program that was a real pioneering journey and some things didn't work the first time. I am proud to have been a part of it.

 

I think it's safe to say that the transition from the recips to the 707/DC-8 was greater than any transition that's taken place since. Only the 1978 deregulation, which has resulted in cheaper fares, less passenger room, slower cruise speeds and far less food offerings, has had a similar impact. I enjoyed flying between NYC and San Juan in the '60s with ample legroom, good food even in coach and a trip to the baggage carousel upon landing.

 

I miss the very short lived (one season) TV series "PAN AM" on network TV. Started with the first Pan Am jet to Europe... was a good show.
About five years ago...

This reminds me of that.

 

While the plots were often quite silly, the depiction of the airline and its people in its heyday was quite accurate. I used to fly in and out of the JFK Worldport and it looked much as it did in the TV show. It even had a small museum! And the entire TV series is available on DVD.

 

Regarding what I said about slower cruise speeds: I have a copy of a summer 1960 Eastern timetable that shows IDL-SJU in 3:15. If you look up today's schedule for the same route, it's about 4:00! In 1960 fuel was cheap and the airlines were trying to convince the public as to how much faster the jets were, so they flew at maximum cruise speed. (600 MPH in the above video.) Today with fuel that much more expensive, they prefer to fly at most-economical cruise speed. So after airliners kept getting faster and faster until the '60s, we've actually regressed when it comes to speed and scheduling.

(Of course, today's schedules usually are also padded to account for ground delays, which was not being done in 1960.)

 

Read “sky gods”, great book on early pan am and the big personalities they had commanding and crashing their planes.

 

I've been reading the opinions on the 707 and wanted to chime in, having been a pilot on that airplane and logging about 1000 hours or so on international travel. First, it wasn't deregulation that resulted in slower speeds it was the increase of fuel prices that did that. However, going across the Ocean, or crossing the pond as we call it, still produced mandatory Cruise speeds of .80 Mach. Personally, I was proud to have flown the 707 and even though I flew subsequent models which had higher thrust engines, newer electronics and computerization, when people ask me what my favorite airplane was I always say the 707. Many pilots who flew the DC 8 and 707, which I fall into that category as well, prefer the 707 over the DC 8 even though the 8 had upgraded Electronics in comparison such as the generator paralleling system, which was automatic on the DC-8 but manual on the 707. The Boeing 707, or the seven-oh as we nicknamed it, was one of those aircraft that will go down in history and one of the special aircraft that Pilots would really like to fly for their bucket list, in addition to aircraft like the Constellation and the DC-3. It brought in the jet age and linked people together in a way never realized before. Sure, today's Airbus and 787s far out class and outpace the old seven oh but those planes would be nothing without the pioneering of systems and aerodynamics that the 707 brought.

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Boeing pulled out all the stops when it went on to build the 707 and everything they could think of went into the design to make it the Greyhound that it was. I was a small part of that team and remember a lot of drawing numbers even now. Most all of what Boeing initiated in the design was very successful but there were some concepts that weren't as good as the Douglas designs on the DC-8 and it made the 707 a shorter-lived airplane. Initially the DC-8 was slower with less sweepback and other draggy features but in Douglas tradition it was structurally durable and fairly simple in comparison. Eventually it became to live much longer than the 707 and proved to be dependable and liked by a lot of operators and pilots because it was comfortable and easier to fly. Once Douglas got rid of some of the design traditions from the prop era, the DC-8's range and speed improved. Leading edge changes and external clean-up did some help. My late brother was a physician and did FAA pilot physicals and he said the younger pilots liked the 707 better than the DC-8's that was preferred by the older pilots.

 

Very interesting reply. I enjoyed reading your background and observations between the two aircraft. Would love to talk with you sometime about the 707 and what kind of problems you encountered with it. You help to design an absolutely wonderful airplane. In my humble opinion, the airplane that came closest to the feel of the 707 was the DC 8-62 series. I flew that one out in Saudi Arabia and felt like I was flying the 707, particularly on the approach. The one thing I liked about the 707 on the Isle s was that it went into a slot. About 1.2 on the E / flaps and gear down and that thing would almost fly itself to the runway, very stable aircraft with a lot of flex in the wings that gave it a very smooth ride in rough conditions. Congratulations on being a part of an extraordinary design team.

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Of course, that was true, but the sharply lower air fares that resulted from deregulation were, in my opinion, the bigger factor. In my 1960 timetable, the coach fare between NYC and San Juan was $90 (fixed by the CAB), which seems low enough, but in today's dollars that would be $765! In 1979-80 I was living in NY but working in Seattle and was flying regularly cross-country. As a result of deregulation, I was paying far lower fares than I would have been before. Airlines had to cut costs, and flying slower was one way of doing it.

 

I think that the main reason the DC-8 outlived the 707 was its "stretchability". The 707 sat fairly low to the ground and it would have been impractical to stretch. The DC-8 didn't have that problem and the -60 series was the result. Most of those DC-8s that were in service after the 707 had departed the scene were stretch jobs. My last flight on an 8 was on a re-engined United -71 flying cross-country with a stop in Denver.

Boeing sure learned their lesson; starting with the 727 they made sure that all of their airliners were "stretchable".

 

Is that because it could 'tail-strike' if stretched too far when it rotated on take off? Due to the short gear legs?

 

The 707 wasn't stretchable because of the short landing gear so, Jim, you are correct. I remember opponents of the lengthened oleo as stating something like 65 pounds per inch of added weight and weight was a critical element in the design of the airplane. Bad mistake here on this one but possibly a non problem because the airplane had a limited structural life vs the DC-8. The thin wing structure was slick and fast but it was constructed of "exotic" materials that were pushed to the limits. Seven thousand series aluminum alloys were chosen for most of the materials and although they were strong as steel they were prone to fatigue failures over time and therefore limited in their operational life. The 707 was a masterpiece of aerodynamic sculpture where drag of any kind was battled with force. I remember when the fan engines were introduced and the gas producer cowling was subjected to supersonic flow in some area. The cowling surface tolerances at riveting points were tighter than anything seen by manufacturing at the time and dimpling depressions were all but unacceptable. Manufacturing complained that they couldn't accommodate the demands but engineering was King at the time and they prevailed. Everything on the airplane was addressed in this manner to make it as clean as they could to lower drag. The engine nacelle cowlings were squeezed down to the engines as tight as they could be done and we had numerous problems routing fore and aft tubing under the cowling frames. Some tubes were squashed almost flat but they worked. Compare the DC-8 fat cowlings to the 707 cowlings. Over all, there was a feeling of many unknowns in this programs because we were inventing a new wheel, so to speak. I mentioned in my book some of the problems and surprises that popped up during this creation. I'm not a graduate engineer but I say " we" because I was a part of working on many problems to arrive at a good solution. I am proud to have been a part of it 63 years ago.

 

Some more thoughts. The retention of the " clean wing root" without a span-wise landing gear beam and Yehudi caused a lot of problems because of using a torque box suspended from the rear spar to support the landing gear trunnion. Again, less malleable steel alloys and high heat treat caused fatigue cracks and and a redesign that negated the weight savings. Drag reduction in not using the break in the trailing edge was minimal. The sharp wing leading edge could produce sharp stalls at moderate speeds and the addition of the Kruger Flap prevented flow separation and made things a lot nicer for the pilots.

 

I should have mentioned Martensite condition in the torque box ribs that were cracking. Lower heat treat, a change in alloys, and thicker gauge ribs. Really an interesting time.

 

Engineering was still king when I was there in 1979 working on the design of the 767, effectively the aircraft that replaced the 707 in Boeing's lineup. T. Wilson - an engineer - was the man in charge. Today, the bean counters and lawyers have taken over and, comparatively speaking, the industry is in a mess as a result. I'm glad I'm now retired!

 

Again, you are correct, Jim. I still see my old group for lunches now and then and they are still producing the best engineering but it is compromised by slapdash "money saving" manufacturing ideas down the line that too many times don't work. The 777 was a prime example of how to run a program. Mulally was an engineer with an uncanny sense of knowing what to do and how to do it AND he was the greatest motivator that I ever worked for. A lot of people didn't like him but he sure knew how to set up the best way to do something and he actually participated in it. The 777 had challenges but there were no struggles like the 707 and 747 had.

 

The 727 was an engineering and aerodynamic masterpiece and for once, manufacturing was just as good. A great airplane. It broke ground in a lot of design innovations and manufacturing processes, like shot peen forming of the wing skins and close tolerance forgings in ribs and the huge vertical fin front spar forging. An advanced flight control system was also a giant step ahead.

 

I loved the little card that Mulally provided to every one of us on the program that had, if I recall, 21 program objectives on it. The last one was, "Have fun!"

 

I just want to say, what a great thread! Thank you, Bob, so much for sharing your memories and thoughts on the 707 and early jet age.

 

Went to FE school on that airplane. Loved it and miss it.

 

Right on The Mark with everything, Bob! I could not agree more and be honest with you you got a little deeper into the aircraft than I have ever been with all my time flying it. The one thing the dc-8 had over the 707 was the stretchability of it. In fact when I flew the 63 series dc-8 it had a 2-stage rotation. Instead of bringing it back to 15 degrees as you rotate, the 63, and the 61 also, would only accept a 7 degree rotation and you held that until you got 100 ft off the ground, then adjusted the pitch for about 14 to 15 degrees for the climb to 10000 ft. Anything more than a 7 degree pitch on rotation would yield to tail strike on this extremely stretched airplane. Bobb you mentioned a book... Give us some more information regarding it. Oh, one last thing. I reread my last post, a little too late, but what I meant to say in it was that the 62 series dc-8 was very close to the 707 in that once established on the ILS approach, and the EPR was set at about 1.2, with flaps set for landing, the airplane was practically on automatic and with land itself. I remember many times I would control the thrust with the number 2 and 3 engine only, which produced Les yaw on a tight approach. And oh by the way I flew the 757 also and had to do a 0-0 Landing with that on autopilot and Autoland. I literally could not see the runway even in the flare! Geez you want to talk about a pucker Factor. Okay enough about me over to someone else

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I got my flight engineer certificate on the 727. I was the second youngest person to go through braniff Airlines... Remember them? I love that airplane too, but never got to fly it. In fact I used to have to work out engine intermix problems between the 5A, 7A and 9 engines. Lots of fun back then

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