702 D.H. Comet Airliner (1954-1965)

It is hard to believe that there are no prior postings for this somewhat famous, ill-fated airliner, so thought I would start one. The Comet was originally developed back in 1949, but did not actually fly until a few years later. As many have doubtless heard, it had a very unfortunate, tragic record, at least in its early life, with several of the planes coming apart mid-air due to structural failures. I won't recount all of those here, but because of it, many advances and cautions in future jet airliner design resulted, including the subsequent design of the Boeing 707, which came out right after the Comet. Meccano released this model in October, 1954 and the attached image shows the announcement in the 1954 U.S. catalog. The registration number used, G-ALYV, was originally assigned to one of the planes, but this aircraft crashed in Calcutta, India, in 1953, so Dinky subsequently, and belatedly, changed the tail number to G-ALYX, which later models reflected. Somewhat later, the tail color was also changed from white to blue. This was a very long lived model, being in production from late 1954 through 1965. When this was introduced in late 1954, it was listed as a Dinky Toy, and not as a Supertoy, even thought the first box was the familiar white and blue striped Supertoys box. Sometime in 1955, the model was elevated to Supertoys status, and also renumbered, along with the whole Dinky range. The number changed from 702 to 999, so the box was changed to show that new number, and the underside of the plane changed also; raised areas were added so Supertoys could be added and the number changed. My only example of this very nice looking airliner is a very early version, with the inside box lid showing November, 1954, so I believe I received this in 1955, when I was 10 years old. Thus it shows the early numbering and lack of Supertoys labeling. I will leave it to others to supply later examples. Regards, Terry

And here is the successor, G-ALYX. It bears the number 999 below the wing, and the numbers 702 on the box have been overpasted with oval stckers 999. Unfortunately the stamp inside the box lid is unreadable, but this example must be dated 1955-1956. I wrote an extensive article on this model on the Talkmodeltoys forum, but I do not succeed to paste the url into this post. (In fact I did not succeed pasting text or links for a long time already (!)). Kind regards, Jan

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Jan---I read your very nice, in-depth article on TMT, and it is a real shame that you cannot paste and copy that and other articles into this website. What a waste of great and wonderful efforts by you and many others put into posting there, and now not able to share it. But thanks for adding to this topic with your post on the later version, and hopefully others will follow.

Well, I do not intend to copy all my written and image stuff from over there to this website, that would be a huge job and the material would need revision because of new views and finds. I just would hope that Al and Dave could manage to enable straight, down-to-earth copy and paste from whatever other source, be it a word document or a website text or url, without special instruction. Nevertheless, I highly esteem their efforts up till now. May be I'm just stupid, but I do not manage, whereas this was no problem to me before. Kind regards, Jan

Hi friends. Here is my contribution. it's a G-ALY V

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Greetings all! The de Havilland Comet 1 G-ALYV, the subject aircraft of Meccano's model No. 702 crashed 32 kms north-west of Calcutta's (Kolkata) International Airport, India, on its return flight to London from Singapore, via Bangkok and Rangoon. It was determined that the cause was structural failure due to a bad thunderstorm that was in the area at the time. The actual identity of the aircraft was not made public until after a further Comet 1 was lost and the establishment of a committee to look into the causes for the problems of the Comet aircraft. One of the major structural problems was found to be the shape of the square windows and the method of fastening this component to the pressure fuselage. When tests were carried out using a Comet immersed in a tank of water, stress cracks formed around several windows when the fuselage was pressurised. This design fault resulted in a change with the window shape from square to round. By the time the identity of the Comet became known to Meccano, a substantial number of models had already been produced during September, October and November 1954 as well as literature, advertising etc. It was not until the middle of 1955 when the model number was changed the information of which came from Pete Golden. His 702 in a 702 Dinky Toys box has 999 over the inscription 702 under the wing. At this stage it is not known whether the model was switched. However, I have seen the original Dinky Toys 702 blue striped box with 999 glued over the top of 702. The Inspection stamp was MR 157. Another model, this time in a DINKY SUPERTOYS blue striped box numbered 999, but still with the original registration of G-ALYV, with the model number under its wing changed to 999. The registration with advertising literature appears to have been changed from G-ALYV to G-ALYX on or about May 1959. Certainly my 999 G-ALYX was inspected in September 1959. The drawing on the box has the model with an all-blue tail with the registration picked out in white together with a white 'Speedbird' athough the model itself has the original white tail with the registration and lines in blue. It is interesting that although Meccano changed the registration from G-ALYV to G-ALYX as a result of the fatal accident to the former, Meccano did not change the transfer for the blue cheat line that incorporated square windows to round windows of which G-ALYX was subjected to in real life. Again, it was made as a toy, and Meccano did go to extra-ordinary lengths to keep their model away from an aircraft that crashed with loss of life. I suppose the easiest way of overcoming this dilemma would have been to eliminate the BOAC markings altogether, and just have a model of a Comet 1 without any airline markings. However we do not know whether BOAC actually provided some capital for the production of this model, which at the very start of airline operations with the Comet would have given BOAC a marvelous advertising tool through little boys and their toys encouraging their parents to fly in a Comet! This would be the only plausible reason for all the trouble taken with changing the model's registration markings although its subsequent Sales Number alteration, may have been inevitable with its reclassification to a Supertoys. Bruce (#150) 30 November 2015

Thanks, Bruce, for this wonderful compilation of the Dinky model's and the real-world Comet's history's interrelationship! Kind regards, Jan

Alfa -Victor I remember very well seen the Comet in the pre-fabricated tank at the RAE Farnborough in the late 50's.Today Farnborough is becoming the fifth London airport for charters and executive jets. Alfa - X-ray at Heathrow in 1953.

Bruce--I also wanted to thank you for your well regarded thoughts on the changes to the Dinky Comet airliner. It sure seems to make sense, although they sure waited a long time to change that registration number. To me, that also raises the question of just how well known the various registration numbers on aircraft are. In the past, I never paid any attention to them at all, so I also wonder just how much the public would recognize either of those numbers. To me, at least, the identity of the just the Comet alone was the single biggest issue, I guess followed by the fact it was a BOAC plane. For those interested, there is a lot of history about the Comet and all those accidents, plus the resultant testing that went on for some time to identify just what had failed and why. I seem to remember that both those square windows, their rivet attachments, plus the joining of the cockpit nose section to the fuselage, were all failure points. Since the Comet was a pioneer jet airliner, the rest of the fledgling industry learned a lot from those tragic accidents, and Boeing admitted as much. I still think the Comet was one of the most handsome airliners ever built, and it stll has classic lines. A very sad story indeed, and the whole episode must have caused some angst for Meccano.Regards, Terry

Bruce--That had to be interesting to actually see a real Comet.....such a rare bird now! And trying to take photographs of a full size plane is indeed a challenge.....they are just too big, but thanks for getting what you did. Regards, Terry

Thank you Terry for you kind words. The Comet was the benchmark for modern air travel, and Boeing, as well as Douglas and Sud were very keen observers. My first sight of a Comet was only this year at Duxford Imperial War Museum where Comet 4 G-APDB previously owned by Dan-Air London but painted in the colours of its first operator, BOAC. I spent a lot of time examining this wonderful flying machine, but due to its size and that it is sharing a huge hanger with many, many other aircraft it was impossible to adequately photograph it. These are some of my poor photography attempts! (There is also a fuselage of a Comet 1A and the nose section of a Comet 4 at the de Havilland Aircraft Museum at Salisbury Hall) Bruce (150) 2 December 2015

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660 271The Dinky Comet was a type 1 Comet.Frame 6022, G-APAS, ex-Air France F-BGNZ, exists as the only surviving and in-tact example of a de Havilland Ghost-powered Comet 1 series aircraft. Converted to Mk. 1XB in March, 1957, the aircraft was re-registered XM823 and subsequently as G-APAS; its final flight was made on 8 April 1968 and the aircraft was thereafter retired. Currently residing at the Aerospace Museum at Cosford, near Shifnal in Shropshire, England, 'Alpha Sierra' appears to have been remarkably well preserved albeit in open air storage for more than thirty years !