(first posted 1/5/2013) I never knew my paternal grandfather—he died when my Dad was just 16, but from the stories I’ve heard, he was instrumental in setting up the Air Mail Service back in 1926 at Candler Field (known today as Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport). One of my uncles still has the letter Grandfather sent Grandmother on the first Air Mail flight to the airport. Two uncles as well as my Mom worked out at the airport from the 1940s through ’70s, and this photo shot by one of them is of particular interest because of the aircraft shown.
The Caravelle was the end result of a specification, published by the French Civil Aircraft Committee in 1951, for an aircraft carrying 55 to 65 passengers and 2,200 lb (1,000 kg) of cargo on routes up to 1,200 miles (1,930 km) with a cruise speed of about 320 knots (370 mph). The nose and cockpit area design were taken directly from the DeHavilland Comet, as Sud already had contractual arrangements with the company. Sud’s original proposal utilized two Rolls-Royce Avon turbojets, along with two auxiliary Turbomeca Marborés jet engines. When Rolls-Royce uprated the Avon engines, Sud was able to drop the auxiliary engines and decided it wasn’t worth the effort to relocate the Avons under the wings as was typically done. The rear-mounted design turned out to greatly reduce cabin noise, which was a happy side benefit.
After winning the competition, the prototype flew in May 1955, and orders for production aircraft were placed by Air France and SAS in 1956 and 1957, respectively. Caravelles were sent out to airshows and on demonstration flights for potential customers and, after certification in 1959, were placed in active service.
This specimen is likely a demonstrator flown in to pitch airlines at the Atlanta Municipal Airport (as it was then named), which had become the busiest in the USA by 1957, serving over 2 million passengers annually. United Airlines was the first US-based operation to purchase Caravelles, putting them in service in 1961.
The Caravelle had distinctive triangle-shaped windows, which remained consistent throughout its production run. The overall layout of the Caravelle—swept wings with rear, pod-mounted twin engines—would become the standard for medium-range commercial aircraft. 282 copies (including all variants) were produced through its production run. Sud then turned its attention to a supersonic aircraft design proposed to be called the Super-Caravelle. This work would be merged with a design from the Bristol Aeroplane Company to eventually become the Concorde.
One of the my favorite jets from my early years. That nose is so sleek and handsome; I’ve always preferred it to the ones Boeing and Douglas used.
I remember seeing these in Baltimore in the mid-sixties, but never flew on one. Like all these early jets, it was a noisy bugger.
It must have been a big deal to see this in 1957, before there were any civilian jets in operation in the US.
A really interesting article, it jogged my memory immediately. I flew on a Swissair Caravelle from Paris to Zurich in 1970 on an all-summer trip through Europe after graduating college. Don’t remember much more about them other than the distinctive triangular windows, though, and their very noticeable sleek design. I don’t recall seeing them here in the U.S. very often.
I never saw one of these in person, although I know United flew them from Philadelphia, but I’ve also thought they were about the coolest looking jets ever.
I read just recently that TWA also ordered Caravelles, but was unable to take delivery because they couldn’t find financing (pretty common for TWA during the years of Howard Hughes ownership).
They didn’t have a long life in the United fleet. Once United began taking delivery of Boeing 737s at the end of 1967, the Caravelles began to be retired.
Oh and interestingly, United flew them in an all-first class configuration, which probably explains why Paul never flew on one.
Despite their small size, I believe they didn’t have the outstanding short-field performance of the 727, 737, and DC-9. They were, to the best of my knowledge, never certified for operation to LaGuardia or Washington National.
I believe United only purchased 20 Caravelles total…
I don’t know for sure, but that sounds about right.
I suspect in their day the Caravelles were useful for UA on routes where a jet would give them a competitive edge, but where the traffic didn’t warrant deploying a DC-8 or B720 (out of Philly, I recall the CVLs flying to Buffalo and Rochester in competition with Eastern). Once the 727s and 737s combined good short-haul economics with the ability to fly out of LGA and DCA (in particular), the Caravelles were toast.
They were used on shortish-medium length routes as an upgrade from the DC6s that were the backbone of United’s fleet then (except for the long-haul DC-8s). It was a stop-gap until the 727/737, which is what really replaced the DC6s finally.
Good points but in all fairness, the 727 and especially the 737 were at least one generation ahead of the Caravelle. Boeing took the experience of its 707 and planes like the Comet and Caravelle to come up with two excellent aircraft that could take off fully loaded from a strip designed for a freaking biplane. That, ladies and germs is not only brilliant engineering but even better marketing. It busted open small towns to jet travel, which was even cheaper than pistons engined planes and a whole lot faster, safer and more comfortable.
It is doubtful how long the Caravelle would have lasted anyway. The first generation turbojets were really loud as they were in the 707. By 1970 or so these planes couldn’t land near urban areas, which is what really sealed their fate. Air America got most of the 707’s I have been told.
I had the experience of flying in and out of a number of gravel airstrips in small communities in the Northwest Territories on Pacific Western 737’s in the late 1970’s. You have to respect a plane with that kind of capability.
737s on a gravel airstrip? Yikes!
Oh yeah, very popular in South America where there were a lot of gravel strips. Boeing had a special kit to satisfy this corner of the market:
http://www.b737.org.uk/unpavedstripkit.htm
BTW this site is the very best source of technical info for the 73.
Classic old bird, instantly recognizable, prettier then a 707 (and especially a DC8) and I have never seen one in my life. Mind you I was born when Caravelle’s were being replaced by the DC9, 727,737 etc. Just a few years ago there was an African airline still flying Caravelle’s but shut down down due to numerous safety violations. Can’t understand why flying 50 year jets in a loosely regulated airline market such as Africa constitutes a safety risk,but apparently it does.
I flew the CRJ – Canadair Regional Jet, and one of the benefits of rear mounted engines is that you get near centerline thrust when you lose an engine (and you will ALWAYS fly around on one engine or with a thrust reverser deployed in flight during every 6 month proficiency check). That meant during a V1 cut on takeoff that you could actually manipulate the rudder long enough to dial in enough rudder and aileron trim to keep from getting cramps in your legs.
I’m curious if these planes had APUs or if they needed a ground power unit (GPU) and an air cart to start engines. Beautiful bird, so sleek and graceful.
For the non-pilots in the room:
“V1 means the maximum speed in the takeoff at which the pilot must take the first action (e.g., apply brakes, reduce thrust, deploy speed brakes) to stop the airplane within the accelerate-stop distance.
“V1 also means the minimum speed in the takeoff, following a failure of the critical engine at VEF, at which the pilot can continue the takeoff and achieve the required height above the takeoff surface within the takeoff distance.
I don’t know much about old airplanes, but that was an informative writeup, thank you Ed.
It is interesting is that the USAF T-39/North American Sabreliner also had triangular cabin windows. There must have been a structural reason in the 1950’s to select them for a pressurized jet.
The regional jet idea was far off, as short runs were still flown by props, at least in the US, back then. The DC-9 and 737 had a lot more seats, hastening retirement of the Caravelles.
Oh yeah, I just noticed the shape of the cabin windows. That’s neat – perhaps a signature trademark or for structural integrity. Maybe it was to prevent structural failure from repeated pressurization cycles. The British learned that the hard way from the first DeHaviland Comets with their (initially) square cabin windows.
In fact, all square-window Comet airframes were broken up. The Gen 2 aircraft was much improved but it was soon overtaken by the 707.
Speaking of props, I paid my dues in the mighty Beech 1900D. That plane was a horse and could take-off and land anywhere! They were not cabin class, and were deliberately designed with only 19 seats to keep from having to use a flight attendant (You need one FA with 20-50 passenger seats, 2 FAs with 51-100, etc.), so the passengers didn’t like them. But their power/weight ratio was good and the airline could fly those planes 12-14 legs all day (with different crews), 7 days a week, and with no more than a smattering of MELs, keep going with minimal maintenance. But the longest legs we flew in them were 2 hours, and a typical flight was more like 1 hour. Those props produced so much power that on a typical stall recovery, we would keep the nose pointed UP as we pushed the power forward, and the engine/props, which were mounted on each wing, would provide enough lift to keep from stalling. The mighty Beech 1900D.
That’s a great story. The most cool plane I have ever flown in was a Dash 7, from Manila, Philippines, to Caticlan, Philippines. The strip at Catliclan is, get this, 600 metres long. At the time, 2001, an small airline called Asian Spirit (not defunct, more later) ran a few planes around and Caticlan was a lot closer to Boracay than Kalibo.
Anyway, we get on the plane in Manila and it is hot. Really hot as the a/c isn’t working properly. This was fine once we climbed to altitude and the view was fantastic with the high winged plane. You could tell the pilot was really enjoying flying the Dash 7 which pilots universally love because it handles like a fighter plane. He made really sharp turns and didn’t spare the ponies at all.
The landing was the fun part. We approached the strip low and really hot he must have been doing 150 knots and no more than five metres. This was intended to run off the goats, which graze around the area of the runway. He then pulled into a steep climbing left turn, obviously he had throttles to the stops, he comes around and drops the flaps so hard the plane shudders. My wife is looking at me with a “never again!” look and my one year old son is, get this, laughing. The plane then just plopped, or plunked at the far end of the runway and then the four big props reversed like crazy and we were all thrust forward. People actually screamed. I, on the other hand, loved it.
When we got off the plane, the pilot had a big grin on his face and as he looked out the open cockpit windows and I yelled, “How many metres was that?” He replied, “About 400, Sir!” I said, “Fun?” and he replied, “Really fun!” Most the the fifty passengers looked rather pale.
The take off was almost as good: we backed to the end of the runway, he guns it with the brakes locked and off we go into the air in, get this, 400 metres. Amazing aircraft.
Sadly, this plane was lost when on a flight to Malay from Manila, one wheel failed to deploy. The captain, the same guy, went back to Manila, circled to burn his fuel and made a perfect landing. It veered onto the grass and nobody was hurt, but it was a total loss. Too bad, cool plane. Even cooler pilot.
Incredible: thanks for sharing that.
And every single word the truth. In fact, the “airport” at Catlican was so dangerous that the Philippine Air Authoriy has placed severe restrictions at Catliclan do the large number of crashes due to the short runway. They were actually landing all jet Yak40’s here and several crashed, fortunately with no serious injuries or deaths. Only small stuff is landing there. This is a bummer in a way because Kalibo is a two hour bus ride from Catlican, making your trip to Boracay that much longer.
Speaking of Boracay, a decade ago it was paradise. I will take Bohol or Palawan any day now. There are still many truly unspoiled places in the Philippines and there is world class scuba diving for very reasonable prices.
I’ve done that exact run, except it was in some kind of twin-engined ship built in Indonesia, AFIR.
Ah yes the Dash 7, aka “The Ontario Elevator”
Imagine my surprise when I saw this photo of one of my favorite jet airliners! I had a model of this plane in 3rd grade – 1961-62.
Although my favorite jet airliner has to be the Convair 880, I especially liked – er, LOVED the Boeing 707. Why? It was the plane that took me to California after I left home for Beale AFB after basic training in November, 1969. The 707 was also the ONLY time I have ever flown first class – on military standby out of STL Lambert Field back to California after a leave in April, 1970.
Here I go again, being nostalgic!
As far as pure design goes, the Lockheed Super Constellation is the greatest of all – prop or jet!
The Convair 880s were supposedly faster than any other commercial jet at that time (possibly faster cruise speed than the Boeing 727s, but I’m not sure). From what I’ve read, they were fuel hogs and were over-designed and too complex for repeated legs. They were down for maintenance so much it didn’t make financial sense to own and operate them for most airlines. Or so I’ve read.
I’m gettin’ old: I was in 5th grade in 1961-62!
The Convair 880 was a bit faster because it had a narrower cross-section. 3-2 seating, which made it non-competitive with the 707.
Yup, four thirsty and smoky military-derived GE engines on a DC-9 size fuselage. The program cost General Dynamics about half a billion (in early 1960’s dollars) in losses, a record at the time.
History has shown that the world demand for large airliners can only sustain a duopoly, not counting the closed Soviet bloc market during the Cold War. It was Douglas and Boeing in the 1930’s, Douglas and Lockheed in the 1940’s to the end of the prop era, Boeing and Douglas thru the 1980’s. Lockheed tried to get back in, but the L-1011 program nearly bankrupted them. Once Airbus became strong, Douglas was finished. Convair and Martin could never really break in, nor the Europeans before Airbus. Brazil and Canada are nipping at the heels of Airbus and Boeing in the 100 seat class, but I cant see that change the big picture.
My uncle who was a tech in the RCAF used to go on how the 880 was built like and handled like a military aircraft, which is not surprising since it had the same engine as the F-104. General Dynamics had no experience in building these kild of aircraft and over-engineered them. Anyway, my uncle was tickled pink that circa 1969 he was sent to Vancouver to work on a JAL Convair 880 because nobody at YVR had any idea of what to do to it. Because he was a CF-104 Crew Chief, he and his team were sent to work on the JAL plane.
He said it was one of the most interesting machines he had ever seen. Totally over-engineered in every way but a real hot-rod.
I think I did get to ride in a Convair 880 as a kid – flying Cathay Pacific between Tokyo and Taipei, in 1970. Pretty rare – and CX didn’t have a lot of them – they had more 707s back then.
Boeing may have lost the battle, in those days, (not) but won the war!
Beautiful aircraft, and truly ahead of its time… introduced five years before the 727 or Trident, and six before the DC-9 or One-Eleven. Always wished I’d gotten the chance to look out of those triangular windows on a commercial flight.
Talk about wishfull thinking or karma or foreshadowing, what ever it’s called . One of my neighbors threw out about 1,000 pounds of old magazines. Most of them were old airplanes magazines like AirCombat and Wings.I love airplane books along with the real thing. All from around the mid 70’s. The first one that caught my attention was one that featured a story about the Tornado. One thing I like more than weird flying objects are the motors that power them. Anyway the second feature was the Caravelle. Most of your pics look like the same ones from the magazine story.
BTW the motors that powered the Tornado/Typhoon were the Napier 24 cylinder H-24, 2 flat twelves with twin cranks stacked on top of each other and the Rolls-Royce Vulture,a 24 cylinder that was 2 V-12’s sharing a common crank in a “X” configuration.
I’ ve read once that the Caravelle was the last passenger jet that would fly with the engines off. Is that true? AGB
Just about every winged airplane will fly with the engines off, in a downward glide. The speed and angle of that are known for each airplane, and is called the glide ratio. A 767 with engines off has a glide ration of about 12, meaning it will drop one foot for every 12 feet of forward motion, in its optimum glide.
When all the engines go out, the glide ratio determines how far a pane can go to finding an emergency landing place. And the jet that went down in the Hudson in NY some years back did that because it wasn’t high enough to glide to an airport. So the pilot did a controlled glide into the river.
That was put to the test way back in the early 80s:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider
“When you loose an engine on a twin, how far will the remaining engine take you?”
“All the way to the crash site…”
My only flight in a Caravelle was a charter flight from Boston to Copenhagen and return around 1970. Preposterous you say, the Caravelle doesn’t have trans-Atlantic range? It doesn’t, so the flight was done the old fashioned way, Boston -> Gander -> Reykjavik -> Copenhagen, and vice-versa. The flight was even longer than that sounds, as the flight had to follow a circuitous route to avoid long overwater segments.
That is…crazy. I would not have thought they would do such a thing. But then Stephanie has all sorts of horror stories about charter flights, as she and her family traveled a lot to and from US and Europe and withing Europe in the early 70s. Just the other day she was telling me about a flight back to the US that took some 30+ hours and numerous stops because of some issues along the way, These were like the stage coaches of the sky.
And we complain about flying nowadays.
One reason oceanic routes were usually flown by 4 engine aircraft is the regulatory requirement for twin engine aircraft to remain within 1 hour flight time of a suitable airport with one engine failed. In the 1980s the Boeing 767 twin jet was the first certified under new rules, recognizing the reliability of newer generation turbofan engines. The new rules,called ETOPS (Extented Twin Engine Operating Parameters, or, to crews, Engines Turn Or People Swim) allowed for 90, 120, 180, and recently 210 ETOPS rules, and twin jets now dominate oceanic routes. The rules require very specific equipment lists and maintenance procedures. I have flown many hours behind the controls of the 767 crossing both Atlantic and Pacific oceans without a hint of drama.
Caravelle was first jet I ever flew in, believe it was 1961 Newark to Pittsburgh Pa.
A very enjoyable read. Never got certified but grew up around succession of Cessna’s – a 182, 206 and a 337 SkyMaster being the later ones I got some yoke time on. The economy eventually intervened, and later 9/11 which made for some major and unfortunate changes in civilian aviation. I’m a couple years younger than a few of you, but do remember the golden age of air travel where my brother and I had to wear coat and tie to fly with our grandparents. The late ’60’s and early ’70’s were a neat time to be a kid.
Never ceases to amaze me 1) the broad range of interests in here and 2) the number of folks who share them.
Hey, I’m a transportation nerd – planes, trains, or automobiles, doesn’t matter, they’re all fascinating.
I remember seeing the United Caravelles at Chicago O’Hare in the late ’60s – about the time I started to fly on airliners by myself. Only saw them; never did fly on United’s.
But in March of 1979, I did fly on an Air France Caravelle on the short flight from Hamburg to Paris. This must have been very close to the retirement of the type; I do not remember ever seeing another one despite many trips to Europe in the early and mid-80s. I don’t remember much about it other than it was neither the 737 or DC-9 that I was used to. Earlier on that trip to Europe, I had flown on a British Airways Trident from Newcastle to London Heathrow.
People complain now about how cars look so much alike. Airliners now look a lot alike too. Used to see Caravelles all the time at Metro, and they could never be mistaken for a DC-9 or BAC-111. BOAC flew VC-10s, very different from the nearly indistinguishable 707/720/DC-8/CV880. The CV990 had it’s unique features, like the aft fan engines and shock bodies on the wings. The 727 had a unique look going too, as the Trident didn’t show up around here. Now I look up at what’s coming in as I cruse down I-94 and wonder 737 or A320?
I flew on a 990 exactly once. A bit quieter than a 707, probably the aft fan breaking up the turbine exhaust. A bit narrower too, but 1st in a 990 was the first time I saw a meal table that folded down from the seatback in front of me.
I always liked that old American Airlines livery, but preferred the look on the classic Boeing 707. As a very small child, I called this airline A-Eagle-A. Ironically, they’d later go on to create a commuter airline called American Eagle.
In recent years, “regional” jets have grown to be much bigger than the Caravelle. Heck, bigger than the original DC-9 and 737. The tail mounted engine era seems to be coming to an end. New Embraer and Airbus (formerly Canadair) regionals look more 737’s, with low wing mounted engines. Bombardier CRJ series, however long it will last on the market, is the last one with tail mounted engines.
Earlier than the Caravelle, but just after the Comet, was the mid-sized Avro Canada C102 ca. 1950. The prototype impressed the USAF and Howard Hughes, but nonetheless was stopped because a Cabinet minister insisted on CF-100 production. Thus, Canada was denied a head-start in the civil jet airliner biz.
NASA hired many Avro engineers after the later CF-105 cancellation. Naturally, they got little publicity.
Interesting to see this again.
Moving the engines to the wings from the tail is not easy, as the structural design and strength of the fuselage and wings would need to be handled very differently. I can’t recall any aircraft design having engines moved from one position to another. Also, wings without engines provide more lift for a given span, which is one reason for, for example, the VC-10 having rear mounted engines to enable more lift for hot and/or high take-offs.
The window shape is very intriguing – one suspects it’s a design feature but with potentially serious unintended consequences. The Comet’s issue was more aerial and antenna cutouts than windows per se but the science is exactly the same. To have avoided disaster, I guess every aircraft effectively incurred a weight penalty in the surrounding structure, but that is a solution to a self imposed problem.