Bristol Brabazon: The Jumbo that never was

[Deimos Anomaly]

The Bristol Brabazon

This plane had a bigger fuselage cross section than a 747 and was otherwise comparable, with a wingspan of 230 feet and a length of 177 feet. But nobody bought it at the time.. they seemed to think there was no market for such a plane. (What folly).

In the end the only complete prototype was broken up for scrap in 1953.

Unlike modern cram-em-in planes, despite its size it was designed to carry only about 100 or so passengers, in a high degree of luxury more akin to a surface ship.

Video of test flights and demonstrations

 

[J.T.B.]

This plane had a bigger fuselage cross section than a 747 and was otherwise comparable, with a wingspan of 230 feet and a length of 177 feet. But nobody bought it at the time.. they seemed to think there was no market for such a plane. (What folly).

There was no market for that plane, and the folly would have been to throw good money after bad and try to operate that beast. That's why BOAC didn't buy it.

Low-volume, high-price luxury air service was tried by a number of carriers after WW2 and nobody could make money on it, including BOAC with the Boeing Stratocruiser. The post-war British aviation industry had enough problems without one of its biggest carriers losing money on expensive aircraft it couldn't fill.

The turboprop Brabazon would have been a lot better that the prototype, though. Those multi-bank radials were a maintenance nightmare, and putting them in the wing only increased the headaches, along with the chances of overheating and engine fires. Even early-generation turbojets like the J57 were cheap to operate by comparison.

--Justin

 

[MANT!]

America had already given up on large airliners in the early 50s..
http://www.air-and-space.com/xc99.htm as piston powered giants were too costly to operate and maintain.