On August 7th, 1955, Boeing’s chief of flight testing Tex Johnston was asked to perform a simple flyover of the Boeing 707 prototype over Lake Washington in Seattle during the annual hydroplane races. Instead, Johnston did a series of impromptu maneuvers that left everyone watching on the ground below gobsmacked. Let’s find out more.
A unique opportunity
The year was 1955. Thousands had flocked to see the annual Seafair Cup unlimited hydroplane race around Lake Washington, Seattle. It just so happened that the International Air Transport Association (IATA) also decided to hold its annual convention in Seattle that year, coinciding with the Seafair week.
During that time, Boeing was testing the 707 prototype – the Dash 80. It was the first jetliner developed by the company and was supposed to reduce the size of the world by a factor of two when measured by flight time. Boeing’s chairman at the time, Bill Allen, realized it was the perfect opportunity to show off the prototype to all the airline executives who had assembled there from around the world.
Allen asked Johnston to perform a flyover of the Dash 80 over Lake Washington for the benefit of industry executives watching it from chartered boats on the lake. Johnston agreed but had a surprise planned.
The barrel roll
Instead of performing a simple flyover, as decided, Johnston decided to surprise everyone by performing a barrel roll. According to the Seattle Times, he executed the barrel roll at a speed of 490 miles/hr (789 km/hr), flying the 248,000-pound (112,491 kg) airplane upside down.
As if doing it once was not enough, the ace pilot repeated the maneuver in case anyone had missed it. In an interview, Johnston stated about his decision to perform the barrel roll twice, stating,
“I knew that no one would believe what they had seen, so I turned around and I came back and repeated the same thing on a westerly heading.”
As spectacular as it looked, Johnston stated that the one G maneuver was non-hazardous. In his book “Jet-Age Test Pilot,” Johnston explains,
“The airplane does not recognize attitude, providing a maneuver is conducted at one G. It knows only positive and negative imposed loads and variations in thrust and drag. The barrel roll is a one G maneuver and quite impressive, but the airplane never knows it’s inverted.”
It was supposed to be a non-eventful flight and didn’t even have a minimum crew. Luckily, one of the test engineers on the plane happened to have his camera with him and snapped a picture that later became famous, showing the airplane on its back, the engines up on top of the wing, and Lake Washington below.
Too much at stake for Boeing
Not aware of what was happening, Bill Allen was dumbfounded watching the most unusual flyover he had ever seen. Allen had valid reasons to be nervous. As stated by the Seattle Times, he had pushed the firm’s board of directors to invest $16 million into the prototype. In 1955, it amounted to almost all of Boeing’s profit since World War II.
There was also some hesitancy among the general public transitioning from propeller-powered aircraft to jet planes. The structural flaws and fatal crashes of the British-made de Havilland Comet a few years ago made passengers skeptical of jet-powered planes.
For Boeing, this meant everything had to be near perfect with the Dash 80. Clearly, Allen was not very excited by Johnston’s daredevilry. Later, when he asked the pilot to explain his actions, Johnston replied that the maneuver performed at one G was harmless. To this, Allen responded,
“You know that. Now we know that. But just don’t do it anymore.”
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