The Concorde that might have been

[uk 75]

No, not a supersonic transport but an Anglo-French programme that might have changed the face of Europe's civil aviation industry nearly twenty years before the Airbus 300.
If you have noticed the similarity between the front of a DeHaviland Comet and a Sud Aviation Caravelle you will not be surprised to learn that Sud licence built the design from De Haviland.

De Havilland Comet & Sud Caravelle

The real world history of the two planes is told in the link above. But in an alternate world the two companies might have got together with a family of long and short range airliners.
The Caravelle was more fortunate in its career than the Comet. But the Comet 4 might have been possible much earlier with two companies and their governments working together.
A 1950s "Concorde" programme might have beaten Boeing and Douglas with a range of designs that could have been in service before the 707/DC8 and the 727/DC9.
Instead of the Comet 4 a DH/SA long range jet could have been in service by 1957.
Caravelle could have become a DH/SA family of jets meeting the same requirements as the BAC111 and DH121.
As Britain and France glower at each other across the Channel I thought a bit of wishful thinking might cheer us up. Probably as unlikely as a film starring Dirk Bogarde and Brigitte Bardot but just as fun.

 

[Archibald]

It surprised me when I learned that factoid - Caravelle and Comet 4 sharing their nose and cockpit. Interesting idea, even more with Medway and Conway engines. I would add the VC-7 to the lot. In fact that very one had the potential to derail the 707 and DC-8 hitting then at the right time. Plus it would be perfect as tanker in place of the C-135FR later on. Hmmm anglo-french VC-7 civilian and military variants as a "Concorde in the 50's"...

 

[Caravellarella]

Only the first two Caravelle prototypes used actual Comet 2 cockpit sections; all subsequent Caravelles (from the first static test specimen onwards) used Sud-Aviation designed cockpits based on the Comet cockpit but with progressively larger areas of glazing.

Terry (Caravellarella)

 

[Archibald]

Thank you !

 

[zebedee]

I'm curious, were the two nose sections built specially for Sud, or were they recycled from the numerous unfinished Comet 2 airframes at Chester and Hatfield? The Rare Jets database has construction numbers between 06038 to 06044, 06046 to 06070 and 06102 to 06110 as either abandoned or uncompleted.

Zeb

 

[Caravellarella]

I'm curious, were the two nose sections built specially for Sud, or were they recycled from the numerous unfinished Comet 2 airframes at Chester and Hatfield? The Rare Jets database has construction numbers between 06038 to 06044, 06046 to 06070 and 06102 to 06110 as either abandoned or uncompleted.

Zeb

Dear Zeb, I'm not sure yet. Here is an image of a Caravelle prototype with the Comet 2 cockpit clearly visible. I need to check my references further but I do know that De Havilland supplied two complete Comet cockpits; some commonality was sought as both types were viewed as complimentary for a time.



Terry (Caravellarella)

 

[Caravellarella]

Dear Zeb, the first Caravelle prototypes were constructed between 1954 and mid 1956 (I can't provide exact dates right now). When was Comet 2 & Comet 3 production abandoned? Here is a photograph of the first Caravelle static test specimen ES-1 with the Sud-Aviation designed cockpit glazing.



Terry (Caravellarella)

 

[Caravellarella]

Sud Caravelle cockpit production at Marignane.



Terry (Caravellarella)

 

[Caravellarella]

Sud Caravelle assembly at Toulouse - St, Martin......



Terry (Caravellarella)

 

[Caravellarella]

Dear Zeb, another image of a Caravelle prototype showing how clearly the Comet cockpit was "grafted" onto the prototype's fuselage (bearing in mind that the Caravelle had a wider fuselage section than the Comet)......



Terry (Caravellarella)

 

[Archibald]

Baby steps toward Airbus... !

 

[Caravellarella]

Baby steps toward Airbus... !

Yes Archibald, but they took their time. I, for one, have always thought it would have made more sense for BEA to have ordered Sud Caravelles built under licence in the UK to avoid the costly error of the HS121 Trident.

Terry (Caravellarella)

 

[Archibald]

The big missed opportunity was when they (stupidly) shrunk the Trident and its Medways, into the smaller Spey variant (DH-121 from memory).
Only for the 727 the same size as the ORIGINAL Trident to steamroll the smaller one (facepalm). That was one of the most boneheaded decision in civilian aviation history, really.

 

[zebedee]

Fantastic shots Terry! A quick scan of Comet! (Graham Simons 2013) and Broughton Wellington to Airbus (Norman Barfield 2001) suggests that Comet 2 production was suspended in the summer of 54, 7 airframes scrapped at Hatfield and 30 in various stages at Broughton, presumably including 2 fuselages and other components that had been shipped in from the abandoned production line at Shorts Belfast factory in October/November 1955.

Included below are a couple of shots of one of the Shorts built airframes being navigated through the centre of Chester on its way to nearby Broughton... anyone who knows the city will realise just how tight a squeeze this is!

Zeb

 

[alertken]

Of course Caravelle and Comet should have been merged and developed to cover markets later addressed by BAC 1-11 and DH.121.

Q: So why did that not (appear to) cross anyone's mind?

My A: no private money was at risk. Sud was Nationalised, DH.106 was 100% State-funded (as were all Brabazon Types). Both Nations' Ministers conflated sexy jetliners with National Prestige, even though few of their voters would ever fly (same as Blue Riband tussles by Transatlantic luxury liners). Both thought they could corner this market...independently. France thought UK was winning quite enough with the RR Avon (and I suppose some vendor items?); UK was unclear what France could offer to a collaboration (Note how I paint UK with the same tar as most Brits explain why it was impossible to work with AMD). Prestige. Benefitting only USA.

 

[Archibald]

Yup, 1955 was just too early for any serious intra european cooperation to happen, even limited to anglo-french. Aerospace cooperative efforts really boomed in the early 1960's, starting with the Transall. And after it was some kind of cambrian explosion.

Before 1960 and from 1945, France and Great Britain civilian aerospace only had something in common: a rather suicidal appetite for grandiose and doomed airliners projects.
If you think Brabazon and Princess were colossal wastes, try Armagnac, Laté-631, SE-200, Cormoran, Languedoc, Breguet Deux-Ponts... France had its share of miseries. Most of the list was fine aircraft but loosy money maker airliners. And many times Air France had to say NO and NO AGAIN to atempts by its government owner to pass it uneconomical airliners.
We want you to order Armagnacs "NO".
Languedocs ? NO.
Deux Ponts ? NO.
They are no airliners, they are flying money pits.
Or sometimes they said "yes" then lost a crapton of money and dumped the aircraft for American ones. Sometimes Air France won that argument, sometimes they lost. Nonetheless they got DC-4s, then Constellations, then DC-6s, and finally, 707s.

In that regard, the Caravelle was all important, as it was perhaps the first post-WWII french airliner success. At least Air France had no trouble saying "yes" to an order by the french government to buy some.

 

[Zoo Tycoon]

When the Caravelle adopted the Comet nose, why did they shift the Nose Landing Gear afterwards? All the attachment structure was there together with the bay itself and the loads will be inherently less because of the longer lever arm.

Ah, I think I know, probably due to the rear engines and hence the marginal on ground CoG management. Then all the follow on commercial aircraft from the same stable, stayed with an aft ward NLG position until the A380 and A350 which went back to the Comet like forward location.

 

[Zoo Tycoon]

Yup, 1955 was just too early for any serious intra european cooperation to happen, even limited to anglo-french.

(Sud-Est) license-built 101 Sea Venom FAW.20 as the Aquilon

Bristol Hercules built by SNECMA for the Noratlas

The Brit Airliner success from the Fifties was the Viscount, such a shame it couldn’t be built on.

 

[Archibald]

I see your point, but Aquilon was just a French company taking a licence (as done by Canada building T-33s and F-86s, and countless other countries). Same for engines, it was just one french company taking a licence. Not big cooperation at government level, Jaguar or Transall style. Btw, it somewhat started with NATO - LWF (G91) , ASW aircraft (Atlantic)...

 

[TomcatViP]

Interesting that it started with American money, no?

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Some questions for @Archibald.

Were the Caravelles with P&W JT-8D engines equivalent to contemporary versions of the Boeing 737 and Douglas DC-9?

If it did. Would this work?

De Havilland/Hawker Siddeley and Sud-Est/Sud Aviation/Aérospatiale jointly produce a Medway powered Caravelle to compliment the Medway powered version of the DH.121 Trident.

Which is the opposite of what I usually say, i.e. BAC should have encouraged the French, German and possibly the Italian state owned airliners to buy the BAC.111 by sub-contracting some of the airframe to French, German and possibly Italian airlines to increase the number of units produced. It might have the added benefit of depriving Boeing & Douglas of early orders for the 737 and DC-9. E.g. Lufthansa was the first airline to order the 737.

This is a more extreme version of that from Post 43 of the thread "Franco-British Nuclear Program".

With the exception of Concorde one thing you didn't mention in the post was civil aviation. I think the British should turn the BAC.111, Big Trident and VC.10 into Proto-Airbus projects by making them joint projects with France and possibly West Germany to share the production costs and ensure bigger launch orders because the French and German Governments would make their state airlines buy them. Although the British aerospace industry would be building a percentage of each aircraft instead of all of one this would be offset increased sales.

Please note that the Big Trident is the Medway powered version and the BAC.111 is a Medway powered version instead of the Spey powered version of the "Real World". The cause & effect is that BEA doesn't loose it's nerve and orders 24 Medway powered Tridents which allows the BAC.111 to have that engine instead of the Spey. This in turn allows the One-Eleven to have a proper development programme and compete more successfully against its American rivals.

BEA ordering the "Small Trident" instead of the "Big Trident" receives considerable coverage in Alternative History forums. However, the failure of the BAC.111 to reach its full potential for lack of a more powerful engine receives hardly any and much of that is from me.

 

[Archibald]

The DC-9 vs Caravelle story was pretty infuriating. Sud Aviation first went to Douglas to sold them a licence, but they dragged their feet, carefully looked at the Caravelle... and finally created from scratch a much, much improved "copy", called the DC-9.
TBH, the Caravelle main drawback was, it was too small and famously lacked enough room for... luggage. That was the main issue that quickly made it too small and unable to compete with the Americans.

Still, 270 airframes build made the Caravelle quite a success.

Later Douglas played the same ugly game with Breguet and the 941 STOL transport. So Douglas had kind of bad rep in France.

Crucially, the DC-9 already steamrolled the Caravelle, and then the 727 happened. That's why I'd rather start from the original Trident, and in passing, dump the Medway, civilian and military, at SNECMA in 1959 for the larger Mirage IVB. This would also salvage the Medway for the nascent SAAB Viggen.
SNECMA before the M53 and CFM56 desperately looked for turbofan tech, their choice was Pratt and the JTF10 / TF30 extended family.

The original Trident (before the boneheaded decision) had the correct size and turbofan engines to tackle the 727 and thus the DC-9. Get an anglo-french alliance over that one and in the late 1950's and early A320-like narrow body success may eventually happen.

Although a bottleneck will always remain. That is, anglo-french airframe production capability even together was an order of magnitude smaller than Boeing & Douglas. They build thousands of narrow bodies, we build dozens to hundreds. Most people think early european jets sold in the low hundreds because the Americans were better sellers, but even a massive European success would have ran head on into industrial issues. I've seen this issue mentionned again and again on both sides of the Channel. The Europeans were often loosy at capitalizing on airlines orders, the more massive the orders, the more they sucked at answering them quickly enough. That issue plagued all British and French airliners, and was also a worry for Concorde in the glory early days of 1963 when PanAm ordered it. Production of even 140 Concordes would have taken a lot of time, it was feared the Boeing 2707 even with a very late start would eventually catch up with Filton and Toulouse.

Makes one think that, in order to tackle Long Beach and Seattle jetliner production lines, Europe had to bring together the bulk of many countries aerospace industries: France and Great Britain and Germany and Belgium and the Netherlands and Spain and countless others. Only Italy went their own way, they were Douglas, then Boeing, bridgehead in Europe.

Airbus finally took care of that problem, but had to grow to the scale of Europe and thus solve teething logistics issues first. Somewhat ironically, a Boeing helped solving the problem: the Super Guppy.

In stark contrast, Douglas had the DC-3 colossal production orders experience right off the 1930's. Boeing was quick to follow that model in the 707 days. They also had colossal military orders to back their production lines. Overall, they knew how to caretake precious airlines, and ramp up jetline production within the blink of an eye.