As WW II showed, the future of aviation would be in jets. Jet engines would allow planes to fly higher, faster, and longer. All that was needed was to develop the, properly. Geoffrey de Havilland, whose company made some of the bombers that flew in WW II, introduced the British government a radical design his prototype design for a turbojet — it would be brilliant if it worked, but it was untested and required a lot of financial commitnment. The government passed; but the British Overseas Air Company took him up on it.

On this day, May 2, in 1952 the De Havilland Comet 1, the world’s first ever jet airliner, took off  from London on its maiden flight to Johannesburg, South Africa. As the BBC reported on the day of the launch “The De Havilland Comet 1 is regarded as a feather in the cap for British design and innovation and promises to usher in a new era of faster, smoother air travel.”

The era nevertheless came with a few speed bumps. A years after the launch, a De Havilland Comet exploded in mid-air, killing more than a dozen people. A series of other air disasters followed the Comet, and engineers found a flaw in the design weakened the fuselage integrity to the point where even a minor stressor would break it. All Comets were grounded until a fix couple be applied, which opened the way for Boeing’s 707, which could seat more passengers, to enter the market. The Comet never recovered from the loss of its reputation.