"Peter Stickney" wrote in message
om...
Peter Skelton wrote in message
. ..
On Mon, 26 Jan 2004 00:49:41 -0500, (Peter
Stickney) wrote:
To add some Military Content. The groundings and losses did not
necessarily mean the immediate scrapping of the Comet I. DH _did_
infact, come up with a rebuild program that would allow the airplane
to have some useful life. The only Comet Customer who took them up on
this was the Royal Canadian Air Force, which had purchased two Comets
to support the First Air Division in Europe. These remained in
service until the early 1960s.

ISTR Comets in service with Freddie Laker into the 70's. Dan Air
used them until Nov. 3, '80 (something over 110 passengers which
must have been fun.)

Those were Comet IVs, not Comet Is. Basically an entirely new
airframe with a Comet-like shape. They were entirely redesigned
structurally, and a bit larger. (71,760 kg MTOW rather than
47,620 kg) They used Rolls Avons (With about twice the push)
rather than the centrifugal DH Ghosts.
The Comet IV was actually a pretty good airplane. Unfortunately,
it took about 4 years to get the Comet IV redesigned and off the
ground. By that time, instead of competing with DC-6s and Lockheed
749 Constellations, it was competing with the Boeing 707 and the
Douglas DC-8. At that point, it was too slow, and too short-ranged.
(Pan Am 707 used to take off about a half-hour after BOAC Comet IVs,
and they made a point of announcing when they passed the Comets
somewhere between Iceland and Greenland.

The Comet is still flying (the Nimrod) . The last civilian plane was in
1987. That is a long civilian service life. The British government
prevented one of the last from being sold to the USA.