Boeing flew 707 prototype 60 years ago

The Dash 80 conducts its first flight, on July 15, 1954, with pilot Tex Johnston and co-pilot R.L. Loesch. The Dash 80 conducts its first flight, on July 15, 1954, with pilot Tex Johnston and co-pilot R.L. Loesch. Photo: The Boeing Co. Photo: The Boeing Co. Image 1 of / 39 Caption Close Boeing flew 707 prototype 60 years ago 1 / 39 Back to Gallery

The day before Boeing's Model 367-80 was originally scheduled to fly for the first time, the left main gear collapsed after some taxi tests.

"Well, now is the time to learn these things," lead test pilot Alvin M. "Tex" Johnston said as he stepped out of the airplane, R.G. Thompson reported in an article for Smithsonian Air & Space Magazine in 1987.

Fortunately, the gear had broken away as designed, without damaging the wing or fuel tanks. Engineers reinforced the landing gear and repaired the jet in time for it to fly on July 15, 1954, just two months and a day after Boeing rolled the jet out of its Renton, Washington, plant.

The "Dash 80," as it came to be known, was the prototype for the 707 jetliner, which dominated the early jet age, and the KC-135 Stratotanker, which is still serving the U.S. Air Force.

It wasn't the first jet airliner. Britain's de Havilland rolled out its Comet prototype in 1949 and got the aircraft into service in 1952. But, after a series of Comets blew apart in the sky, tests showed square windows were causing metal fatigue.

By the time de Havilland re-engineered the Comet, in 1958, it had fallen behind other rivals — particularly the Boeing 707 and Douglas DC-8.

Stepping out of the Dash 80 after that first flight on July 15, 1954, Johnston said: "She flew like a bird, only faster."

But, as Thompson noted, Boeing still had to overcome a series of issues in flight testing, including a hydraulics problem that caused the brakes to fail, a landing gear explosion and fire caused by new anti-skid brakes, a mishap with the thrust reversers and persistant flutter -- natural vibration that can amplify and damage the aircract.

Boeing had no orders lined up for the jetliner when its board of directors agreed to pour $16 million into development in 1952, when the company rolled out the Dash 80 or when the airplane first flew.

Boeing first aimed to sell the jet as a military tanker-transport, so the Dash 80 had few windows, no seats and two large cargo doors. The Air Force ordered 29 KC-135 Stratotankers a week after the prototype's first flight.

Pan American World Airways placed the first 707 order, for 20 of the jets, on Oct. 14, 1955. But it also ordered 25 competing Douglas DC-8s.

Boeing delivered the first 707 on Aug. 15, 1958, and 1,009 more after that. It delivered 732 KC-135 Stratotankers.

Boeing kept the Dash 80 as a test aircraft. It flew with a fifth engine mounted in the rear to test installation feasibility for the three-engine 727 and with three different types of engines at the same time. It carried out tests on engine thrust reversers and sound suppressers, engine icing conditions, air conditioners, wing flap and slat modifications, radar, paints, landing gear and steep approaches designed to reduce noise near airports.

The Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum acquired the Dash 80 in 1972, but then parked it in the Arizona desert for 18 years. In May 1990, under an arrangement with the Smithsonian, Boeing returned the airplane to Seattle for full restoration.

In August 2003, it flew to its new home on permanent display at the Air and Space Museum's new Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, near Washington, D.C.'s Dulles International Airport.

Click through the gallery above to see a visual history of the Dash 80, the 707 and the KC-135.

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