Convair Jetliners: The Early Jet Age Concorde

"No, I don't thank you for the fish at all" (notindetroit) 02/15/2014 at 15:07 • Filed to: Planeopnik, Convair 880, Convair 990, Convair Jetliners, Jetliner, Airliner

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The desire to get from point A to point B as fast as possible is arguably the main impetus for air travel in the first place. The technological progression of air travel as a measure of speed has always outstripped other modes of transportation; when cars were capable of what would now be residential neighborhood speed limits and (few) trains capable of breaking the 100 MPH barrier, aircraft demonstrated not only being able to go at least a little bit faster but able to cut a direct line from one city to another. Today, cars routinely travel at high double-digit speeds and the latest experimental maglev trains promise airliner-like speed, but the preferred means of expedient transportation remains a Boeing or Airbus product at just under the sound barrier. At some point, however, the quest for speed hits economic barriers, and its price becomes increasingly harder to justify. The classic "speed kills the business model" story is the Concorde, but over a decade earlier the same lessons had already been learned, imposed by a madman who demanded the best beyond reason.

Above image credit NASA via Wikipedia. The information for this article comes from a variety of sources such as Wikipedia and others, but the bulk is accredited to !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! by George J. Marrett. The information concerning Howard Hughes' relationship with TWA and the development of the Convair jetlines comes from this specific source.

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Howard Hughes' eccentricity is without a doubt his most enduring legacy, a testament to just how larger-than-life a living character he was. Long before DiCaprio's and Scorcese's The Aviator Hughes' eccentricity had been long the subject of popular media well before, during and after his death at the cusp of the nation's bicentennial in virtual self-imposed exile. He was known as an extremely demanding and sometimes even threatening individual, and for applying his obsessive-compulsive quirks in aeronautical regimes were it simply didn't make any sense or even posed an outright danger. A life-long speed freak and personal holder of a number of aerial speed records, he saw the dawn of the jet age as an opportunity not for safer or more efficient airliners, but an opportunity to simply claim being faster than anybody else. Though he bought up Boeing's 707 and Douglas' DC-8 for his Trans World Airlines (TWA) just like any other airline CEO, he felt a need for something even more special. He contracted Convair (an unusual move for him, as both TWA and himself had a strong association with Lockheed) to develop a jetliner "at least 35 mph faster than either the 707 or DC-8" (Marrett 185). Otherwise, it needed to meet or beat the other specifications of either the 707 or DC-8, particularly in passenger accommodations. The 707 and DC-8 already were near or at the pinnacle of what subsonic aeronautical engineering can achieve at the time, so this was needless to say a tall order. One solution was to adopt the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , an unusual choice compared to the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! engine that powered the Convair's competitors. Both were civilian versions of military high-performance turbojets, but the CJ-805 was in a noticeably different league powering almost exclusively Mach 2-capable designs (the Convair project would prove to be the almost exclusive subsonic and civilian application). A number of names for the ambitious airliner were kicked around; Convair wanted Skylark, Hughes wanted Golden Arrow and went so far as to prescribe a chemical treatment that would shade the aluminum skin a near-golden yellow. The chemical treatment didn't result in the exact shade Hughes wanted, and Continental Airlines put the kibosh on the name anyway as they felt it intruded into their "Golden Jet" copyright. The two parties eventually settled on a simple numeric - 880 - representing the plane's speed expressed in feet per second. Hughes agreed on the specs and the planes, committing to 30 of them in 1956. It was a commitment that Convair was wary of, given Hughes' dodgy reputation for on-time payments, and the project was a very significant risk to them. TWA was so far the sole customer for the 880, and TWA was still buying significant numbers of competing products. In fact, at around the same time, Hughes was busy buying nearly every Pratt & Whitney JT3-related artifact he can get his hands on in order to deny other airlines the engines and spares they needed. This apparently led to the Hughes Tool Company making the largest single order in its corporate history - a near half-billion dollar deal at the time.

Upon demonstration of the Convair 880 prototype, Hughes himself naturally demanded to be the flight's captain. They arrived at the plane in the middle of the desert, in a Chevy manufactured too early for air conditioning and with the windows rolled up - at Hughes' insistence. His exacting, inane stipulations did not extend to the test flight itself however - while not exactly putting the aircraft beyond its flight envelope, Hughes did demonstrate a complete disregard for air traffic control's very presence and performed maneuvers that would be disconcerting for people under the belief that airliners merely fly in straight lines. As test pilot John Knebel recalled to George Marrett, "He just flew the bird and rules be damned" (Marrett 191).

The 880 may have made Hughes happy - but it extended joy to few others, and Convair itself was noticeably hurting from the venture. Convair was completely justified in showing nervousness towards TWA's continued purchases of 707s and DC-8s. The 707 not only got the jump on the market ahead of the competition, but showed sufficient technological advancement - a generation ahead of jet age "early adopters" like the ill-fated DeHavilland DH-108 Comet - that the DC-8 and other contemporaries had little or nothing to show in performance advantage to explain their market tardiness. If the market was tough for even the established DC-8, the 880 even with its speed advantage was near-hopeless in a virtually completely saturated market. Its speed and thirsty engine choice also limited practical route options. That said, it did manage to find buyers outside of TWA. Delta Air Lines would become the second largest operator of the type and the only truly significant first-use domestic operator aside from TWA. It also gained a surprising number of foreign operators including Swissair, Venezuelan flag carrier VIASA and a few Japanese airlines including JAL. Perhaps the oddest operator of the type (besides Hughes himself) was another man known for bizarre behavior and eccentricities but famous in an industry that could almost possibly not been more unrelated to aviation - Elvis Presley. He bought an 880 for personal use and named it after his daughter; the airframe has the distinction of being one of only a handful of 880 survivors to this day, preserved at Presley's Graceland estate.

A closeup of Lisa Marie at Graceland; image credit Thomas R Machnitzki at Wikipedia

Convair tried to make one last go of the design in the form of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! (the number was not significant other than indicating an improvement over the 880). The primary difference between it and the 880 would be a new version of the CJ-805 engine that transformed it into a modern, efficient turbofan in slapping a high-bypass fanblade section on the aft portion of the engine, a feature that's quite literally backwards from normal practice. Another unusual feature was the employment of large pods stuck on the trailing edge of the wing and very reminiscent of the landing gear pods of contemporary Soviet bombers - just as on their Communist military counterparts, the function of these pods was to improve airflow in the hopes of improving both speed and fuel economy. While they were at it, the pods also increased fuel tankage to help the range issue. The 990 was more efficient than the 880 while still maintaining a 40 MPH speed advantage over updated competitors and Convair managed to attract American Airlines as a customer. However, by then the 707 and DC-8 had moved on to corresponding turbofan developments of the JT3 and more importantly introduced fuselage stretches to take better economic advantage of the increased engine power, while the 990 hardly changed size at all. American Airlines reduced their initial order and Convair was once again stuck in the same boat they had been with the 880. Once again, it found some success with foreign operators but the vast majority of users acquired their frames second-hand. Perhaps the most significant operator was NASA, who used just a single aircraft but used it well to help pioneer not only technological advancements for incorporation into future airliners, but extensive testing of systems that would see use on the Space Shuttle as well.

The failure of the 880 and 990 Coronado was devastating for Convair's finances. Just as with the Lockheed L-1011, it wasn't enough to sink the company (who had been acquired by General Dynamics before Hughes imposed his demands and was thus safe with military contracting) but it would ensure that the manufacturer would permanently exit the airliner business, a shocking turnaround after Convair had nearly dominated the short-haul market with its popular line of 240 through 440 series of twin piston airliners. In fact, the 240 series is still popular today with some operators in both piston and 540 turboprop form and was used by Northwest as recently as the mid 80s, decades after the type ceased production - in some practicality it's nearly as ubiquitous as the DC-3 it was intended to replace. The number of surviving 880s and 990s in total, however, need barely more than one hand to count. With so few produced and so few operators, combined with far superior competition, the majority of the ones that were made were unceremoniously scrapped and Convair through parent company General Dynamics eventually became a part of the Lockheed Martin defense juggernaut (which, as previously mentioned, itself was knocked out of the airliner business through failed ventures). As for Hughes himself, he would withdraw farther and farther from public view - which only made the scrutiny of the public eye pursue him with greater veracity. It was a battle Hughes would lose only posthumously as he spent his final days alone in a hotel room - a room sufficient enough that he might as well have been in his own universe. His legacies endure everywhere - patents that rival the number and usefulness of Edison's and Tesla's inventions, an aeronautical firm that pushed the envelope and cornered the early helicopter and guided munitions markets (and though since bought out by other firms, still does) and if nothing else through sheer weirdness worthy of Ripley's Believe it or Not though such creations as the Spruce Goose and dozens of record-breaking aircraft. The Convair 880 and 990 Coronado, however, would not be among them, and Hughes' quest for speed in the airliner market would only doom it to near-obscurity.

ADDENDUM: I have just been informed that the wing pods on the Convair 990 in fact did not contain extra fuel storage. The concept was tested but resulted in unacceptable wing flutter, so they were left vacant. I apologize for the factual error and lack of timeliness in correcting it.

Roberto G. > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 02/15/2014 at 15:30

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Good. And my compliments for the unusual (for Oppo) prose: indeed I learned two or three new English words, from your article.

ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable) > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 02/15/2014 at 15:47

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I will have to read this later. I do look forward to it, though.

A couple of those paragraphs are really rather long for reading on the web.

PK > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 02/16/2014 at 11:02

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This was a really great read. Thanks for putting it together! :)

ascendingnode > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 02/16/2014 at 11:06

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And Hughes was for a long time the dominant provider of communications satellites, leading them to found DirecTV in the 90s. The fact that you can now get DirecTV service in many airlines feels particularly Howard Hughes-ian...

Drew Foster > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 02/16/2014 at 11:25

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Good read....had some meat to it.

Racescort666 > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 02/16/2014 at 11:33

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Good read. Congrats on the front page too. Just like auto, these oddball aircraft stories are all over the place, thanks for sharing.

billdoe > ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable) 02/16/2014 at 11:37

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"A couple of those paragraphs are really rather long for reading on the web."

^^^ You poor dear! <——- Short enough for ya?

the7thearlofgrey > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 02/16/2014 at 11:43

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Rick Allen's Left Arm > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 02/16/2014 at 11:45

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The 707 is a hell of a plane, and is still in active military use in several countries. ( Wikipedia )

KnifeKnut > ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable) 02/16/2014 at 11:54

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I am afraid I have to disagree. Longer, well written articles on the web are much more informative than the increasingly popular, useless blurbs.

Lt-Cmdr-Spork > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 02/16/2014 at 13:20

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The pods were to double as fuel tanks but never did. They were too heavy and resulted in the planes wings oscillating in the airstream.

Instead they located the fuel dump there.

jztemple > KnifeKnut 02/16/2014 at 13:27

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It's one of the primary reasons I use Pocket ( www.getpocket.com ). Used with my Firefox browser (I think it has extensions for Chrome and IE as well) it's just a simple click to save an article for later. There are just so many good articles posted in a day it's hard to read them at once and Pocket works well for me as a way to keep track of them.

[Note, I'm not affiliated with or a paid spokesperson for Pocket. I've just found it to be really, really handy with all these different Kinja sites, as well as other web sites. If this post is in violation of Kinja posting rules, admin, please delete.]

shitheelandtoe > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 02/16/2014 at 13:57

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As a kid in 1971, I flew on a Swissair 990 from Beirut to Tehran. We (my family) were on our way to India for a vacation. It was a short flight by today's standards, but I remember it well because it was an interesting departure from the usual 707s and DC-8s that we typically flew in.

I remember the wing pods very well. I've always been fascinated by civilian (not military) aircraft, and flying in an unusual or new (to me) airliner is still a treat. I also remember my first Il-62 flight, on board Aeroflot from London to Moscow in 1969.

ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable) > KnifeKnut 02/16/2014 at 13:59

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There is a difference between walls of text, and content.

I did not ask for him to reduce the amount of information, merely to reduce the size of the separate paragraphs so it is easier to wade through it using a computer monitor.

The reality is that computers do not yet have the same resolution as paper, and giant, dense paragraphs are still hard to read on most monitors.

I am not proposing this be reduced to a BuzzFeed list-based article. In fact, once I had a chance to read it all, I wish it was longer. Just not so many large paragraphs.

manifold engines > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 02/16/2014 at 14:19

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Many of these were stored and literally bit the dust at Mojave Air/Spaceport.

The ex-NASA 990 seen above serves as the gatekeeper to the spaceport.

I used to see many, perhaps dozens in storage at Mojave in the early '80s during my flight training.

PlanB > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 02/16/2014 at 14:53

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Went to work for Delta in the late '60's. Flew on 880's several times.

IIRC it only had 99 seats. A DC9 could do everything the 880 did a lot more efficiently, just not as fast.

Nothing quiet about it either. Engine noise was obvious and you could hear every acuator, pump, solenoid and cable doing it's job.

Best picture ever of an 880 is a straight front ground level shot of the airplane taking off, a few feet off the runway, gear UP and thick black exhaust smoke rolling out of all four engines. Look it up.

KnifeKnut > ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable) 02/16/2014 at 15:05

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OK, I agree with you on that point.

ranwhenparked > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 02/16/2014 at 15:06

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The 880/990 have always been some of my favorite airliners of all time, and I've always been a little disappointed that I was born too late and their service lives were cut too short for me to have ever had a chance to fly on one.

Hughes' dithering on the purchase process was sadly one of the reasons for the plane's failure on the marketplace. He was accustomed to buying custom planes for TWA, which was a more common practice in the days of propellers but impractical in the jet age, and demanded several years of exclusivity for TWA, which was crippling for Convair since TWA couldn't take enough for them to earn any profit on the plane and in the meantime Boeing and Douglas got the market sewn up.

It was the demand for customization and exclusivity that made TWA the last major US airline to introduce jets, since Hughes didn't want to have the same standard planes everyone else had and only finally consented to buying 707s and DC-8s in the face of a threatened shareholders revolt. He owned a controlling stake in TWA, but the minority owners still had rights of course, and they also raised hell over the financing scheme for the Convairs. Hughes Tool bought the planes then leased them to TWA at exorbitant rates so as to earn back the full purchase price quickly. It was an unusual deal that meant a huge chunk of the airline's earnings were going right out the door into the coffers of a company owned by their largest shareholder. That lead to a huge lawsuit that ultimately forced Hughes to place his shares in a court supervised blind trust, depriving him of their voting rights and costing him functional control of TWA. A few years later, he cashed out and used the funds to buy Air West and add to his Las Vegas empire.

Buran > Rick Allen's Left Arm 02/16/2014 at 17:05

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Including the United States. Even now most of our tanker fleet is modified 707s and DC-10s. They should have been replaced long ago but fighting over who would build them has delayed the project.

4thwall > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 02/16/2014 at 18:44

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Excellent write up!
Very interesting & informative!
Thank you!

Scrape > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 02/16/2014 at 22:14

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Here is a Delta documentary on the 880. These old films are a blast to watch on a lazy weekend. Thank yins, YouTube and whoever illegally uploaded it!

Scrape > Scrape 02/16/2014 at 22:17

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P.S.- I love these old dirty birds. Up until recently, a Diesel 8 (DC-8) combi used to fly in around here. That thing was great to hear 4 of those old engine spool up and blanket the area in thick black smoke...though not as much as these things back in the day. Sadly, it is now retired.

Scrape > Scrape 02/16/2014 at 22:29

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Another good one from Covair themselves. Really, an innovative plane for its time.

Jonathan > shitheelandtoe 02/17/2014 at 10:14

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Similarly, in 1977, I flew as a child to Saudi Arabia in a Saudia L1011 TriStar. Another aircraft that didn't have the success that was expected.

shitheelandtoe > Jonathan 02/17/2014 at 10:36

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I agree. I flew a BA Tristar once in 1980, but I was very tired and not feeling well, so unfortunately I don't remember much of the journey at all. It seemed spacious, although in those days everything was more spacious than it is today.

There's a uniformity to airliners these days that somewhat takes the fun away from flying. First off, everything long haul is Boeing or Airbus. Fleet consolidation means that airlines have few variants. I do recognize there have been huge improvements in safety and so on, but it was fun not having a clue what airliner you'd be on until you were bused out to the plane from the terminal!

On the flight from Tehran to Delhi, we flew BOAC. I was hoping it'd be a VC-10, but it turned out to be a 707 instead. I never did fly on a VC-10, and I suppose I never will now.

Jonathan > shitheelandtoe 02/17/2014 at 10:58

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Yeah, and the feeder aircraft down to Heathrow was a BA Trident, back when there was a large UK aircraft industry, and a UK car industry.

The Trident was withdrawn in the 80's by BA and replaced with a mix of B737, A300 and my favorite aircraft the BAE 146.

I guess whilst I'm being a spotter, I flew on a BAC 1-11 to Zurich about 1985 to go skiing. Still too many planes I never got to fly on though. oh well.

trickylittlebastid > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 02/17/2014 at 12:44

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Interesting article but I'm not quite getting the need to compare this plane with Concorde. They're utterly different aircraft, each designed for utterly different purposes.Concorde wasn't just fast in its day, it was another league of speed altogether from every other jet-liner (excepting the Boeing SST attempt that didn't that was all hot air anyway and the failed Tu-144) and this gap of performance stayed until the end. The Convair 880 was faster than the competition but nowhere close to the degree that Concorde was and this didn't last very long either.

SkipsMcGoon > No, I don't thank you for the fish at all 02/17/2014 at 13:14

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One reason a number of the marque does not survive is how they became in later years popular for hauling cattle. The 880 had a high floor loading spec (allowable pound per cubic inch) compared to the 707 and DC-8. At the time — roughly mid 70s — it was a big business flying cattle from South America into the US for slaughter and resale.

It was murder on the aircraft. The cattle waste was wretchedly corrosive and would, in a short period of time, ruin an aircraft structure due to corrosion. (Not to mention the smell!) Those old 880's were run hard for a while hauling cattle, and then stripped for scrap value, the airframes rotten with cow-piss corrosion. (This is also the fate of a lot of the short-body DC-8s, which didn't have as high a floor loading, but were cheap.)