The Jumbo Jet and Public Safety

Extract

In late September 1967, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain launched a new Cunard ocean liner in Scotland with the phrase, “Every great enterprise has an element of risk and uncertainty about it and I am sure no one can predict the future of our venture.” The launching of any new aircraft carries a similar connotation. For the jumbo jet as for the ocean liner, the risks should be recognised and, therefore, minimised because both the building of the ocean liner and the jumbo jet are extensions of a known art, not an introduction to unknown ventures such as may be true of the SST.

Size is relative. In its day, the DC-3 was called the “giant” air liner. If one compares the 21 passenger DC-3 with the 250 passenger DC-8, a twelve-fold increase, one can say that we are already in the jumbo jet age. The transition has been gradual through the Stratoliners, the DC-4, the DC-6, the Constellation, DC-7, Britannias, Vanguards, Caravels, Convairs, 707’s, and others. The results have been dramatic. (Fig. 1.)