High Corridors-Qantas !954-1970
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Sydney
Age: 71
Posts: 67
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Qantas And The Comet
In the 1970's I can remember meeting and absorbing as much Qantas history as possible from Bruce Mclaren. Bruce was a radio operator (later worked in the Navigation department in Sydney) on the Connies. He related a conversation he had with a QF engineer who had been given the opportunity to inspect a Comet 1. The engineer was intrigued with the gauge of the aicraft's skin and the words Bruce quoted were "I don't know how they will get away with such a fine guage of fuselarge skin." Sadly the engineer's hunch proved to be correct. Qantas may have well suspected the aircraft's shortcomings well before they came to fruition. However the redesigned and much larger Comet 4 was a beautiful airliner but fell short in capacity and operating costs.
