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A record-breaking Comet’s Teesside Link

By Matt Falcus

If you visit the Imperial War Museum at Duxford, you’ll no doubt come across the excellent British Airliner Collection scattered around the various halls and outdoor spaces.

This covers the best of British airliner development, including the early pistons, turboprops and jet aircraft that were developed in this country.

Among the collection is de Havilland Comet 4 G-APDB wearing BOAC colours. However, when it first arrived at Duxford this aircraft was wearing Dan-Air London livery and sat outside for many years. It is now inside the main display hangar having been repainted and its cabin restored to the BOAC era.

This particular aircraft has an interesting history. As the second production Comet 4 built, it was delivered to BOAC on 12 September 1958, and on 3 October 1958 positioned to New York Idlewild (now JFK) airport. The following day it operated the first ever scheduled passenger service across the Atlantic by a jet airliner, setting a new transatlantic record time of 6 hours 11 minutes in the process.

Half-way across the ocean it passed stablemate G-APDC travelling in the opposite direction from London to New York.

Just 22 days later, the first transatlantic Boeing 707 flight took place, but the Comet had beaten them to it!

G-APDB flew for BOAC until 1965, when it was sold to Malaysian Singapore Airlines as 9M-AOB. Then, on 11 September 1969 it was sold to Dan-Air London, reverting to G-APDB. The airline crammed 106 seats into its cabin and operated it on charter holiday flights, mostly from Gatwick, but also from other regional airports.

This is where the Teesside Airport link comes in. On 12 November 1973 the record-breaking G-APDB flew its final revenue service from Alicante to Teesside, before positioning to Lasham to be retired.

Its final flight was the short hop to Duxford on 12 February 1974, following a low pass at Hatfield, where it had been built. At the time it was the highest time Comet around, with 36,269 flying hours and 15,733 landings.

You can visit G-APDB at Duxford today and stand in the cockpit, imagining that first transatlantic crossing, and also the final landing at Teesside only 15 years later.

Read all about the Duxford British Airliner Collection here.

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