The day the Brits beat the Yanks across the Atlantic
Sixty years ago tomorrow a Comet became the first jet airliner to cross the pond non-stop – and one lucky Daily Express reader was on board
BRIAN BARNETT, a softly spoken 82-year-old from London, chuckles as he recalls what he describes as “a fantastic saga, one of the highlights of my life”. Almost exactly six decades ago, on Thursday, October 2, 1958, Brian made an impulse decision to buy a Daily Express to read on the bus to his work at the head offices of Esso near Trafalgar Square.
The paper was running a competition for a reader to win a seat on the first commercial jet to fly nonstop across the Atlantic – all the lucky winner had to do was come up with a slogan to commemorate the occasion.
When he reached work, Brian borrowed a postcard and a stamp and wrote his entry: “Comet IV, ace of space, in the transatlantic race”, before popping out at lunchtime to drop it in a post box.
Two days later he became a part of history, hurtling at 500mph and 40,000 feet towards New York on the first non-stop transatlantic commercial flight, effectively ushering in the jet age.
“The whole thing was a whirlwind,” he says now. “I sent off my entry on Thursday and on Friday I got a phone call from someone at the Daily Express telling me I was on the shortlist and, if I were to win, would I potentially be able to travel tomorrow? Of course I said yes.”
There was one issue, however. Having never been further afield than the Isle of Man – and with his experience of air travel limited to drills as part of his national service in the RAF – Brian didn’t actually own a passport.
“An hour later, they called back and told me, ‘Congratulations Brian, you’ve won. Do you have a passport or visa?’ I told them no, so they whisked a car round to pick me up and take me first to the US Embassy to get my visa and then the passport office before finally sending me for a smallpox vaccination.”
A somewhat stunned Brian was then sent back home with instructions to be awake for 6.30 the next morning to be taken to London Airport (now called Heathrow) and the inaugural non-stop London to New York flight of the BOAC Comet 4 jet plane.
TOMORROW marks the 60th anniversary of that groundbreaking flight and Brian is thought to be the last of the 40 passengers still alive. He has kept a scrapbook of old newspaper clippings marking the event but insists that he can remember the whole experience “like it was yesterday”.
“The occasion of it was just something else,” he says now. “I’ve never been in such exalted company or luxurious surroundings in my life. I was the youngest there by far. Everyone else was specially invited guests of BOAC.”
Brian and the other passengers relaxed on upholstered leather seats with teak tray tables, and were served what he describes as “free flowing drink and upmarket French cuisine”. When the plane reached the point above the Atlantic where they crossed over the corresponding New York to London flight, there was a champagne toast, with further corks popped as they landed for refuelling at Gander in Newfoundland and then again upon touchdown at Idlewild (now JFK) airport, New York.
In addition to the fine wine and high-end food, passengers were free to smoke, move around the cabin at will, or avail themselves of the complimentary perfumes in the cabin bathroom. Brian also remembers flight attendants proudly showing off “the threepenny bit test”, in which one of the predecimal 12-sided coins was balanced on the side of one of the seats to show just how smooth the flight was. And there was a self-organised raffle held by the passengers to guess their arrival time at Idlewild.
Tickets for subsequent flights would cost £311.17 – the equivalent of £7,000 today and just over half Brian’s annual salary at Esso.
What he remembers the most from his experience on the “ace of space”, however, is not so much the luxury as something altogether more magical. “As we took off there was a rainbow on the starboard wing,” he recalls. “It was perfect.”
He also says that, despite never having been on a commercial aircraft before, he was not in the slightest bit nervous. “Oh, I knew there had been disasters,” he says, “but it never entered my head that I was in any danger. I was young and fearless and the whole thing was such a huge adrenaline rush. I felt a part of something incredibly exciting.”
Brian’s winning slogan may have had a certain poetic dash to it but the sentiment was not all hyperbole. In the 1950s, rivalry between British and American airlines to become the first to conquer the Atlantic with a non-stop commercial service really had become a race.
Previous propeller aircraft had to stop multiple times for refuelling including lay-ups in Ireland, Iceland and Greenland. But as jet engineering developed, the increased speeds and altitudes the aircraft were able to achieve meant that London to New York could be managed in 10 hours, and the reverse trip, given a favourable tailwind, in just six hours.
ULTIMATELY it came down to two companies and two rival aircraft. BOAC’s Comet 4 and Pan Am’s Boeing 707 were both poised to be the first to make the crossing – and by 1958 the only barrier remaining came from noise restrictions imposed by the New York Port Authority. On October 3, the authority lifted the restrictions and at 10am London time the next morning, the Comet took off… and won the race.
That transatlantic rivalry was to provide what may have been the most surreal part of Brian’s whole experience. Those aboard the flight may have been clinking champagne glasses as they arrived at New York but not everyone shared their elation. “When we disembarked at Idlewild, we could see people on the roof of the terminal buildings and we suddenly realised that rather than cheering, they were actually booing us,” says Brian. “Apparently there had been billboards in Times Square boasting that Pan Am would be flying nonstop across the Atlantic from the end of October – and we’d just beaten them to it.”
He laughs as he recalls just how upset the protesters at Idlewild seemed to be. “Oh, the booing didn’t bother me,” he says. “I just thought to myself: Great Britain one, United States nil.”
Although the Comet would eventually be outperformed by Pan Am’s Boeing, which carried nearly double the number of passengers and could complete the crossing without a refuelling stop in Newfoundland, for Brian the real achievement came in being the first to make the crossing 60 years ago.
For the 50th anniversary, British Airways laid on a special commemorative flight with cabin crew dressed in 1958-era BOAC uniforms and Brian once again given an honoured place on board. Tomorrow’s anniversary is to be a more low-key affair… and Brian concedes that at 82 his Atlantic-hopping days may be numbered.
But being among the first passengers on the Comet’s inaugural transatlantic flight remains forever special. “I knew it was a big deal even at the time,” he says. “I think it gave the whole country a lift.
“And it was without doubt one of the highlights of my life. Though I never thought I’d still be talking about it 60 years later!”