WEBVTT - Boeing and the Commercial Jet Age 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:07.240 Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios, 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:13.800 How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to Tech Stuff. 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:17.000 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:18.800 How Stuff Works and I heart Radio and a love 0:00:18.760 --> 0:00:22.680 of all things tech. And we are continuing our series 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:25.479 on Boeing, and before we get into it, I just 0:00:25.480 --> 0:00:27.960 want to tell you guys, technically, I probably could have 0:00:28.000 --> 0:00:31.960 done maybe two or three or four more episodes about 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:34.600 Boeing because the company has done a lot of stuff. 0:00:34.840 --> 0:00:37.520 There's been a lot of controversy around some of those things, 0:00:38.320 --> 0:00:42.760 and all of those elements are pretty deep and could 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:46.479 they could all justify an episode all by themselves. But 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:50.520 rather than turn this into the Boeing Podcast, I thought 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:54.160 I would kind of some up things in this third part. 0:00:54.160 --> 0:00:56.160 I'm gonna have to skip over a lot of stuff, 0:00:56.760 --> 0:00:59.080 and if you guys are really interested, I could always 0:00:59.120 --> 0:01:01.760 go back and do a couple of episodes that really 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:05.400 focus on some of the individual stories on a more 0:01:06.120 --> 0:01:10.640 granular level. But rather than have this series go on indefinitely, 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:16.920 We're just going to press about seventy years of history 0:01:17.120 --> 0:01:22.640 together into one episode. So, considering the first two episodes 0:01:22.640 --> 0:01:26.120 were thirty years, we're gonna be taking some liberties. But 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:29.399 in our last episode, we looked at a very busy 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:32.400 time for Boeing because the company had become a major 0:01:32.440 --> 0:01:34.840 part of the war effort for the United States during 0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:37.800 World War Two, and we also looked at how Boeing 0:01:37.840 --> 0:01:42.240 continued to develop both military and civilian aircraft after the 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:45.560 war was over, and we finished with a discussion about 0:01:45.560 --> 0:01:48.680 the development of the seven oh seven, which was Boeing's 0:01:48.840 --> 0:01:53.280 first mass produced commercial jet, so passenger jet like the 0:01:53.360 --> 0:01:57.120 kind we have today now. As I mentioned in that episode, 0:01:57.440 --> 0:02:00.280 the development process for the seven oh seven represented an 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:04.480 enormous investment, a huge risk for Boeing. It took up 0:02:04.640 --> 0:02:08.079 nearly all the profits Boeing had made since World War 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:11.920 Two had ended. And making the matter more fraught was 0:02:11.960 --> 0:02:16.480 that the havaland comment the British made commercial jet that 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:20.600 had inspired Boeing president William Allen to take this big 0:02:20.720 --> 0:02:23.040 risk in the first place, well, it ended up having 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:27.240 some catastrophic problems of its own, and by the time 0:02:27.280 --> 0:02:31.519 those problems became evident, Boeing had already committed to building 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:34.840 a commercial jet, so within the first year of operation 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:40.200 that would be the comment started to have some issues. Now, 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:43.760 the first accident only caused a couple of minor injuries, 0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:47.400 and in that incident, the Commet the airplane failed to 0:02:47.440 --> 0:02:50.400 become airborne at the end of a runway, so it 0:02:50.520 --> 0:02:53.120 ran the whole length of the runway, could not take 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:56.800 off and it ended up crossing into really rough ground. 0:02:57.440 --> 0:03:00.200 But people got bumped up, but that was the worst 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:03.600 of it. However, a similar accident in nineteen fifty three 0:03:03.639 --> 0:03:07.320 was much more serious. Again, a Comet failed to take 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:10.480 off from a runway, this time in Pakistan, and it 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:14.160 collided with an embankment at the end of the runway. 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:17.320 All five members of the crew died and six passengers 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:20.200 did as well. It was the first commercial jet accident 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:24.720 that had fatalities UH and obviously this was a huge deal. 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:29.600 Then in nineteen fifty four, on two separate occasions, Commet 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:34.160 aircraft broke apart in midflight. The Commet fleet was grounded. 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:37.840 As a result, the aircraft lost its certificate of airworthiness 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:41.200 and a full inquiry was made and an investigation to 0:03:41.200 --> 0:03:44.480 find out what exactly was happening. The investigation actually found 0:03:44.480 --> 0:03:49.360 that the aircraft's frame was suffering fatigue and that led 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:52.920 to structural failures, particularly around the windows. It was that 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:56.760 the the pressurized cabins. You know that air pressure inside 0:03:56.800 --> 0:03:59.960 the plane is much greater than the air pressure outside 0:04:00.560 --> 0:04:04.480 in high altitudes, and so you have this force pushing 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:08.520 outward on the interior of the plane, and that push, 0:04:08.880 --> 0:04:12.160 particularly at the windows, was what was causing fatigue on 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:17.239 the airframe. And thus you had structural failures in flight 0:04:17.320 --> 0:04:19.520 with a couple of these comet flights, and that caused 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:23.560 in flight accidents, essentially the planes which just completely break 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:28.120 apart with all people aboard lost as a result. Now 0:04:28.160 --> 0:04:29.760 all of this was going on, as I said, as 0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:33.200 Boeing had already committed to creating its own commercial jet aircraft. 0:04:33.440 --> 0:04:36.000 So one of the big challenges Boeing faced was creating 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:39.560 an aircraft that was demonstrably safe to travel in. And 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:42.360 then a second challenge was to convince the general public 0:04:42.680 --> 0:04:46.839 that this was the case. And travelers were understandably concerned 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:50.560 after the high profile accidents involving the world's first commercial jets. 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:55.159 So Boeing produced a film titled This is Such a 0:04:55.240 --> 0:05:01.040 Charming Name, Operation Guillotine. It was a a film that 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:04.760 was trying to counteract this public reservation of flying aboard 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:07.800 a commercial jet. And in the film, Boeing had test 0:05:07.800 --> 0:05:13.880 footage where they had aircraft chambers that were pressurized. This 0:05:13.920 --> 0:05:16.720 was inside a controlled environment, so this wasn't like flying 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:20.360 in the you know, over the United States or something. 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:25.680 And in the first demonstration they showed a pressurized airplane 0:05:25.720 --> 0:05:30.400 fuselage like a regular propeller airplane type fuselage, and the 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:34.200 fuselage gets pierced by two metal blades. So this is 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:37.240 like a scenario where a propeller failure has happened and 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:40.240 part of a propeller breaks off and breaks into the 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:44.240 fuselage of a plane and that caused rapid depressurization and 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:48.120 the fuselage broke apart in that test. But then Bowing 0:05:48.160 --> 0:05:51.400 showed a similar test with the fuselage of their seven 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:55.400 oh seven and they had five blades pierced this structure, 0:05:55.440 --> 0:05:58.640 not just two. But in their test footage they show 0:05:58.720 --> 0:06:01.880 that the Bowing fusel lodge can hold together even with 0:06:01.960 --> 0:06:06.440 this this breach, and some air was escaping obviously because 0:06:06.760 --> 0:06:10.159 there was, you know, now a hole in the plane. 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:12.800 It's not like you can just not have air leak 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:15.680 out if you have a differential in pressure on one 0:06:15.720 --> 0:06:18.400 side and versus the other, but it did show that 0:06:18.440 --> 0:06:21.000 the Bowing design was far more resilient to damage that 0:06:21.120 --> 0:06:24.119 was going to hold together even in a catastrophic event 0:06:24.240 --> 0:06:28.040 like that than the traditional aircraft, which is an interesting 0:06:28.080 --> 0:06:31.919 way to build passenger confidence, to be sure, but it 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:34.320 was one of the things they tried. The seven oh 0:06:34.320 --> 0:06:36.799 seven was meant to be a mid to low range 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:39.680 commercial jet, and I mentioned in the previous episode that 0:06:39.760 --> 0:06:43.360 PanAm had put in an order for twenty seven oh seven's, 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:45.839 but PanAm also hedged its bets. It wasn't going all 0:06:45.920 --> 0:06:48.599 in on Boeing. It also put in an order for 0:06:48.680 --> 0:06:53.440 twenty five d C eights from boeing competitor Douglas. Boeing 0:06:53.520 --> 0:06:57.520 was able to manufacture the seven oh seven faster than 0:06:57.560 --> 0:07:00.520 Douglas could build the d C eights, and Bowing would 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:03.960 also customize the aircraft itself. They would have different load 0:07:04.040 --> 0:07:06.279 outs and different variants of the seven oh seven, And 0:07:06.279 --> 0:07:09.880 because of those customizations, there's not really one set of 0:07:09.920 --> 0:07:12.000 measurements I can give you for a seven oh seven. 0:07:12.120 --> 0:07:15.240 The same is true for all the different seven hundred 0:07:15.320 --> 0:07:19.240 series aircraft that Boeing would produce. There are different variations 0:07:19.240 --> 0:07:21.640 of those and they all have different stats. But here's 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:24.800 how the first seven oh seven stacked up. It was 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:27.840 a hundred forty five ft one inch long, that's about 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:30.960 forty four point two meters, and had a wingspan of 0:07:31.000 --> 0:07:34.080 a hundred thirty feet ten inches or thirty nine point 0:07:34.200 --> 0:07:37.559 nine ms. The fuselage, so you know, like the body 0:07:37.600 --> 0:07:40.240 of the aircraft had a width of twelve feet four 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:42.880 inches or three point eight meters. And while it was 0:07:42.920 --> 0:07:45.760 meant as a mid range aircraft, its first commercial flight 0:07:45.840 --> 0:07:49.200 was actually between New York City and Paris, France, though 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:52.240 it did stop once in Newfoundland to refuel. The seven 0:07:52.280 --> 0:07:55.400 oh seven could travel faster and hold more passengers than 0:07:55.440 --> 0:07:58.840 the Comet could, and there were several variations of it. 0:07:58.880 --> 0:08:01.720 There was the seven O seven one, the seven O 0:08:01.840 --> 0:08:04.800 seven one twenty B, the seven oh seven to twenty, 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:07.600 the seven oh seven three twenty, the seven oh seven 0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:10.440 four twenty, and then there was the seven twenty and 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:13.720 the seven twenty B variants. So those two seven twenties 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:15.800 you might wonder what's up with those because they didn't 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:18.200 follow that seven oh seven pattern. These were meant to 0:08:18.200 --> 0:08:22.840 be short to medium range jets, and they were also 0:08:22.880 --> 0:08:25.640 meant to service airports that had shorter runways that couldn't 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:28.040 accommodate the larger versions of the seven O seven, so 0:08:28.040 --> 0:08:33.040 these were slightly smaller versions of those those commercial jets. Now, 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:36.520 differences between some of these variants could sometimes be tricky 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:40.320 to spot. Some of them were essentially the same design 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:44.120 but had different engines, so unless you were really really 0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:47.000 observant and had an up close and personal look at 0:08:47.000 --> 0:08:50.160 the interior of some of the workings of the jets, 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:52.840 you wouldn't be able to necessarily tell on site the 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:56.440 difference without seeing a designation. Now, Boeing would manufacture more 0:08:56.480 --> 0:08:59.959 than one thousand of the seven oh seven aircraft across 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:02.400 US all families over the decades, and the seven oh 0:09:02.480 --> 0:09:05.960 seven would be in continuous production from nineteen fifty four 0:09:06.280 --> 0:09:10.680 to nineteen seventy seven. It helped establish commercial jet travel 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:13.880 across the world, not just for Boeing but for all companies, 0:09:14.120 --> 0:09:17.360 and before long more people were traveling by air than 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:21.000 by sea, which was a first because while air travel 0:09:21.040 --> 0:09:24.520 had been established for several decades, it was incredibly expensive 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:29.320 and it was very slow if you're using a propeller aircraft, uh, 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:32.320 and it there was this perception of real danger, so 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:35.520 a lot of people preferred to travel by boat rather 0:09:35.559 --> 0:09:38.560 than by airplane, but jets were a different story. It 0:09:38.640 --> 0:09:41.400 also established something else. The seven O seven had exit 0:09:41.440 --> 0:09:44.920 doors on the front left and rear left side of 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:47.440 the plane, so the four and the aft of the plane. 0:09:48.400 --> 0:09:51.800 This would become a standardized configuration for Boeing's commercial jets 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:54.360 and ultimately would mean that other manufacturers would have to 0:09:54.840 --> 0:09:58.720 follow suit because airports would accommodate this particular configuration with 0:09:58.760 --> 0:10:01.840 the design of their jetway. So if you've flown into 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:05.199 a major airport and you notice that all the jets 0:10:05.200 --> 0:10:07.400 are pulling up to their jet ways the same way, 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:11.280 it's because the Boeing kind of established this, and then 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:14.560 it sort of became the standard. While Boeing was hard 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:17.240 at work on the seven oh seven, the company's aircraft 0:10:17.320 --> 0:10:21.360 also made history in another way. On September one, nineteen 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:25.600 fifty three, a Boeing B forty seven Strato jet refueled 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:30.000 another B forty seven in midflight. It was the first 0:10:30.040 --> 0:10:33.320 time a jet was being used as a tanker. The 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:37.400 arrangement relied upon what is called a probe and drogue 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:42.760 refueling system, so there are two main aerial refueling methods, 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:45.280 and by that I mean two main methods of refueling 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:48.840 a plane in air, not a way of refueling a mermaid. 0:10:49.520 --> 0:10:52.800 One is to use a rigid boom extension that connects 0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:56.240 two aircraft together in midflight for the purposes of fuel transfer. 0:10:56.320 --> 0:10:59.080 It allows for a very high speed fuel transfer because 0:10:59.080 --> 0:11:03.120 you're using a rigid boom. Um when you use something 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:06.840 that has flexibility to it, it actually slows down the 0:11:06.880 --> 0:11:10.720 transfer of fuel a little bit. However, that system requires 0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:13.480 both aircraft to fly pretty close to each other, and 0:11:13.559 --> 0:11:16.600 if something should go wrong, the boom, because it's solid, 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:20.000 could cause serious damage to one or both aircraft, so 0:11:20.040 --> 0:11:24.840 it's riskier. The probe and drogue method is slightly more safe. 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:28.880 The aircraft in need of refueling flies ahead of the 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:34.400 tanker aircraft, and the refueling plane extends a hose that 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:37.240 is otherwise retracted so that it would be flush against 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:40.160 the aircraft. So it starts to let this hose out, 0:11:40.240 --> 0:11:44.040 and the hose trails behind the aircraft, and at the 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:47.160 end of this hose is a basket, and the trailing 0:11:47.240 --> 0:11:49.320 aircraft the one that has all the fuel aboard it 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:53.600 that's going to refuel The first plane has the probe. 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:57.840 It's kind of like a uh, you know, a fuel 0:11:57.840 --> 0:12:01.600 pump that you would use at a gas station. The 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:03.960 the pump part where you plug that, you know, you 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:08.000 slot that into your gas tank. That's kind of what 0:12:08.120 --> 0:12:11.960 the probe is. The pilot guides this probe into the 0:12:12.040 --> 0:12:15.560 basket and that connects the probe to the hose and 0:12:15.640 --> 0:12:19.400 refueling can begin. Afterward, the tanker pilot can retract the 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:22.840 probe from the drobe. The basket um and the pilot 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:26.240 of the newly refueled plane retracts the drogue, winds it 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:29.680 back up, and then you've got a newly refueled plane 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:32.000 in flight and never had the land to refuel. And 0:12:32.040 --> 0:12:35.280 I'm just gonna say this, I find the fact that 0:12:35.400 --> 0:12:39.360 pilots can fly so steady as to allow for in 0:12:39.480 --> 0:12:43.480 flight refueling to be absolutely mind blowing. I'm amazed at 0:12:43.520 --> 0:12:46.880 that level of precision and skill, and also the ingenuity 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:49.600 required to create the refueling system in the first place. 0:12:49.840 --> 0:12:54.560 Human beings can be pretty astounding sometimes, And of course 0:12:54.600 --> 0:12:57.880 I say that as a human being. I'm not some 0:12:57.920 --> 0:13:02.000 sort of transdimensional alien make observations or anything. So let's 0:13:02.120 --> 0:13:05.360 get back to Boeing and stop asking silly questions human 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:10.559 by nint. Boeing had made some huge accomplishments. The Dash 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:13.760 E D had already had its first flight at that point, 0:13:13.920 --> 0:13:17.360 and Boeing was producing the k C one five strato 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:21.200 tanker aircraft, which was based off this DASH eight design, 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:23.600 and it was also at this point working on that 0:13:23.679 --> 0:13:26.720 seven oh seven commercial jet, which again was also based 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:28.080 off the Dash A D. So you can think of 0:13:28.120 --> 0:13:31.360 the DASH E D as the parent to both the 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:34.520 k C one thirty five strato tanker and the seven 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:38.560 oh seven. And those two aircraft were not identical. They 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:40.280 were actually very different from each other, but they were 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:44.640 both based off that same ancestor. Now Boeing was still 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:47.760 building military aircraft like the B forty seven, and it 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:49.720 had begun production on the B fifty two A, so 0:13:49.760 --> 0:13:52.720 things were going pretty well for the company in nineteen 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:57.040 fifty six. On September, William Boeing, who was the founder 0:13:57.040 --> 0:13:59.439 of the company but had you know, sold off all 0:13:59.480 --> 0:14:02.840 of his entry in years before, passed away. He had 0:14:02.880 --> 0:14:06.280 a heart attack aboard his yacht. I can only hope 0:14:06.320 --> 0:14:08.720 that I go the same way. But it was three 0:14:08.800 --> 0:14:11.320 days before his seventy five birthday, and I'd prefer to 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:13.440 last a little longer than that. But other than that, 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:18.120 I think, um passing away on board your luxury yacht, 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:20.920 that's a pretty baller way to go if you've gotta 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:25.040 if you gotta choose, I think on May fift nifty eight, 0:14:25.200 --> 0:14:27.800 the US Air Force put in an order for three 0:14:27.880 --> 0:14:30.840 of the new seven oh seven's, specifically the seven oh 0:14:30.880 --> 0:14:34.080 seven one twenties, because you remember they're all those variations, 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:38.240 and these planes would receive a new designation, which would 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:41.960 be VC one thirty seven A. They were meant for 0:14:42.040 --> 0:14:45.240 something very special. They'd be used for transportation for the 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:48.760 president and for other high ranking government officials. And when 0:14:48.800 --> 0:14:51.680 the president steps aboard one of those planes, that plane 0:14:51.960 --> 0:14:54.800 then becomes known as air Force one for as long 0:14:54.800 --> 0:14:56.920 as the president is on it. And that's fun bit 0:14:56.960 --> 0:14:59.640 of trivia. Air Force one does not refer to a 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:03.720 single goal plane. It's the designation that we give whatever 0:15:03.800 --> 0:15:06.760 plane happens to be carrying the president at any given time. 0:15:07.240 --> 0:15:11.640 So there's no one air Force one. It's whatever plane 0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:14.600 the president happens to be on that is air Force one. 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:17.520 These planes were not the first to be used for 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:20.800 presidential transportation. I mean they were customized specifically for that, 0:15:20.840 --> 0:15:22.880 but they weren't even the first for that. They were 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:25.480 the first from Boeing Um. They were also not the 0:15:25.520 --> 0:15:27.520 first planes to be called air Force one when the 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:30.560 president was aboard, but it was the first time Boeing 0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:34.600 would be the company providing planes for that purpose, and 0:15:34.640 --> 0:15:38.880 they would continue to do so. Boeing has frequently provided 0:15:39.000 --> 0:15:42.480 well sold planes to the United States government for use 0:15:42.640 --> 0:15:48.240 as presidential transportation. On October t n eight, Boeing landed 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:52.920 a contract to assemble an intercontinental ballistic missile or ICBM, 0:15:53.600 --> 0:15:57.120 called the minute Man. This was named after the members 0:15:57.200 --> 0:16:00.600 of the American militia who were participated in the militia 0:16:00.680 --> 0:16:03.160 leading up to the Revolutionary War. They were so called 0:16:03.480 --> 0:16:05.680 the minutemen because they had to be ready to deploy 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:08.600 within a minute of getting a message. The i c 0:16:08.720 --> 0:16:11.560 b M would rely upon solid rocket fuel, which would 0:16:11.600 --> 0:16:15.120 also allow those missiles to stand ready for use indefinitely, 0:16:15.400 --> 0:16:18.000 as opposed to the liquid fueled rockets of that time, 0:16:18.400 --> 0:16:21.200 which had to be fueled pretty much immediately before use 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:25.000 and thus required more time to actually deploy. Now, it 0:16:25.000 --> 0:16:28.480 would come about that they would find workarounds for that 0:16:28.560 --> 0:16:31.040 limitation for liquid fuel, but at the time that was 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:34.520 not really you know, those rear options. Now, while the 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:37.960 Minutemen I c b M had been proposed earlier, the 0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:43.600 US military originally dismissed those proposals, and the idea was 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:47.560 that they had already started development on other missiles, so 0:16:47.840 --> 0:16:49.920 they thought, well, it doesn't make sense for US to 0:16:49.960 --> 0:16:53.720 devote even more resources to building different types of missiles. 0:16:53.720 --> 0:16:56.560 Were already building missiles. But then there was a report 0:16:57.080 --> 0:17:00.200 which was later found to be inaccurate that suggests said 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:02.800 that the Soviet Union was actually far ahead of the 0:17:02.880 --> 0:17:06.800 United States and missile production and deployment, and that pretty 0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:09.159 much scared the dickens of the U. S. Government, and 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:11.639 soon the minute Man was given the fast track for 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:16.160 production and Boeing was in business. In nine Boeing began 0:17:16.200 --> 0:17:19.080 development on what would have been a predecessor to the 0:17:19.119 --> 0:17:21.440 Space Shuttle. I think I referred to this a little 0:17:21.440 --> 0:17:24.359 bit in the Space Race episodes I did a year ago. 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:28.200 It was called the X twenty and was later known 0:17:28.240 --> 0:17:33.480 as the Dina sore d Y in a dash s 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:36.439 O A R. It was a space plane meant to 0:17:36.440 --> 0:17:38.280 be able to return to Earth as a sort of 0:17:38.480 --> 0:17:41.639 plane or glider like the Space Shuttle. So this was 0:17:41.680 --> 0:17:44.840 different from the Gemini or Giminy if you prefer, and 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:48.840 Apollo designs. Those were ballistic spacecraft, which meant they would 0:17:49.000 --> 0:17:53.080 hurtle to Earth like you know, uh, just a cannonball, 0:17:53.600 --> 0:17:56.520 and then deploy a parachute to slow them down, as 0:17:56.560 --> 0:17:59.440 well as angle themselves properly so that you know, their 0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:02.520 heat field was at the right angle, and then eventually 0:18:02.560 --> 0:18:05.120 they would land in the water. From nineteen fifty nine 0:18:05.119 --> 0:18:07.439 to the early nineteen sixties, Boeing would work on the 0:18:07.560 --> 0:18:12.639 dinosaur design, and hundreds of millions of dollars were dedicated 0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:15.560 to this development from the U. S government, But ultimately 0:18:16.000 --> 0:18:18.760 the US government decided that the ballistic approach, which was 0:18:18.880 --> 0:18:23.080 much less expensive and technically less complicated, would get priority, 0:18:23.480 --> 0:18:27.000 so the project was canned in nineteen sixty three. It's 0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:29.840 a shame too, because it was actually a pretty cool design. 0:18:30.240 --> 0:18:32.879 I'll talk about a bit more after the break, but 0:18:33.000 --> 0:18:44.720 first let's go and thank our sponsor. The dinosaur looked 0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:48.399 pretty darn cool in a chunky way. It measured thirty 0:18:48.440 --> 0:18:50.880 five and a half feet or ten point eight meters 0:18:50.880 --> 0:18:54.720 long and had a delta wingspan of nearly twenty one ft. 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:58.159 Boeing had built a mocked up model of it and 0:18:58.280 --> 0:19:01.040 was working on building out a prototo hype when the 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:05.000 project got jumped. The official decision was that the spacecraft 0:19:05.040 --> 0:19:08.560 would have no military applications, so it would be useless 0:19:08.560 --> 0:19:11.760 as a military vehicle. You couldn't use it for you know, wartime. 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:14.760 You couldn't use it for reconnaissance, so there was no 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:17.399 practical use of it in that sense. And it was 0:19:17.480 --> 0:19:20.000 considered to be too expensive to be of any practical 0:19:20.119 --> 0:19:23.159 use as a research and science vehicle, So there was 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:26.800 no practical scientific application. And so the dinosaur went the 0:19:26.800 --> 0:19:29.919 way of the dinosaurs. And yes, I was waiting to 0:19:29.960 --> 0:19:32.199 make that joke for ages. I couldn't wait for the 0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:35.440 break to be over. In the spring of nineteen sixty, 0:19:35.480 --> 0:19:40.119 Boeing acquired the Vital Aircraft Corporation and it formed a 0:19:40.160 --> 0:19:43.840 new division within Boeing. Vital was a play on the 0:19:43.880 --> 0:19:46.920 phrase vertical takeoff and landing, so it's this part of 0:19:46.960 --> 0:19:50.600 Boeing's company that develops v t o L aircraft like 0:19:50.720 --> 0:19:55.480 helicopters and related vehicles. Um they actually would be involved 0:19:55.480 --> 0:19:58.199 in developing lots of helicopters. They don't talk about a 0:19:58.200 --> 0:19:59.840 lot of them in this episode. That's one of the 0:19:59.840 --> 0:20:01.800 thing things that I'm having to skip over quite a bit. 0:20:02.160 --> 0:20:05.400 But they had a hand in designing several helicopters, both 0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:08.800 for the military and for civilian use. In late nineteen 0:20:08.880 --> 0:20:11.359 sixty one, Bowing would land a contract to produce the 0:20:11.440 --> 0:20:14.480 first stage booster for the Saturn five, which would be 0:20:14.560 --> 0:20:17.439 used in the Apollo program. That's pretty darn cool, And 0:20:17.480 --> 0:20:20.760 the following year Boeing would test its first hydrofoil vehicle, 0:20:20.960 --> 0:20:25.560 the high Point. So what's a hydrofoil. Well, as the 0:20:25.640 --> 0:20:28.240 name suggests, it has to do with water, you know, 0:20:28.359 --> 0:20:32.960 hydro water, and a foil is a surface that uh 0:20:33.160 --> 0:20:36.359 provides lift. So a hydrofoil is a surface that, when 0:20:36.400 --> 0:20:39.359 it moves in water, acts as a lifting surface. So 0:20:39.359 --> 0:20:42.399 it's sort of like the wings on an airplane, except, 0:20:42.440 --> 0:20:45.440 of course, an airplane moves through the air, hydrofoil moves 0:20:45.440 --> 0:20:47.840 through the water, and of course water and air both 0:20:47.880 --> 0:20:50.840 obey fluid dynamics. So if you've ever seen a boat 0:20:51.000 --> 0:20:54.879 that travels really fast and it's on top of skis 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:58.439 that are on these long struts, that's a hydrofoil, and 0:20:58.480 --> 0:21:00.840 Bowing would go on to produce hydro of foil vehicles 0:21:00.840 --> 0:21:03.439 for the Navy as well as for other uses. And 0:21:03.520 --> 0:21:06.399 hydrofoil boats can travel pretty darn fast, and it's largely 0:21:06.400 --> 0:21:09.960 because they have decreased drag. There's reduced surface area making 0:21:10.000 --> 0:21:13.040 contact with the water, so they can go much faster 0:21:13.280 --> 0:21:15.800 than boats that have their full surface or you know, 0:21:15.880 --> 0:21:18.919 the full lower surface in contact with the water. In 0:21:19.000 --> 0:21:23.160 nineteen sixty two, Boeing began producing seven twenty seven aircraft. 0:21:23.440 --> 0:21:24.840 So I guess now it's a good time to just 0:21:24.880 --> 0:21:27.760 do a full run down on the seven hundred family 0:21:27.800 --> 0:21:30.800 of commercial jets and get a general timeline for each 0:21:30.800 --> 0:21:33.440 and describe how they are different. I'd like to get 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:36.320 them all all the way collectively, though obviously obviously we're 0:21:36.359 --> 0:21:38.040 gonna have to come back for the seven thirty seven 0:21:38.080 --> 0:21:41.400 Max designed to close out this episode. But yeah, let's 0:21:41.480 --> 0:21:43.280 let's do all the seven hundreds, because if I just 0:21:43.359 --> 0:21:45.480 keep on going through the timeline, it's just gonna get 0:21:45.480 --> 0:21:48.400 tedious anyway. So it all started with the seven oh 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:51.280 seven that got things moving, and then next was the 0:21:51.400 --> 0:21:53.560 seven twenty that was the variation on the seven oh 0:21:53.640 --> 0:21:56.240 seven that was designed for the shorter flights and smaller airports, 0:21:56.720 --> 0:21:59.120 and then after that came the seven twenty seven. Now, 0:21:59.119 --> 0:22:01.320 depending on the lay out, it could hold between a 0:22:01.359 --> 0:22:05.840 hundred forty nine to eighty nine passengers max. And it 0:22:05.920 --> 0:22:09.240 had three engines. It had an engine under each wing, 0:22:09.800 --> 0:22:12.040 and then the third engine was located at the tail 0:22:12.240 --> 0:22:14.919 of the aircraft. It was built into the tail of 0:22:14.960 --> 0:22:18.480 the fuselage, and it was also intended for short to 0:22:18.600 --> 0:22:23.560 medium routes. The original seven thirty seven would follow in 0:22:23.600 --> 0:22:26.920 the late nineteen sixties, and the original seven thirty seven 0:22:26.960 --> 0:22:29.600 had twin engines, was also meant for short to medium 0:22:29.680 --> 0:22:34.000 length trips, and Boeing has updated this particular line many 0:22:34.040 --> 0:22:36.800 many times. There are several variations of the seven thirty 0:22:36.840 --> 0:22:40.720 seven seven thirty seven seven thirty seven Classic, seven thirty 0:22:40.760 --> 0:22:45.120 seven NG, seven thirty seven Crystal seven thirty seven Low Calorie. 0:22:45.280 --> 0:22:47.359 I might be making some of these up, though, but 0:22:47.400 --> 0:22:49.159 there really is a seven thirty seven n G that 0:22:49.200 --> 0:22:53.120 stands for next Generation, just like Star Trek and uh 0:22:53.520 --> 0:22:56.040