Ykhjuy

I was looking at the history of commercial aircraft and was wondering why UK-based De Havilland was the first to produce a jet powered airliner (The DH106 Comet) when the US had a much bigger civil aviation industry at the time, such as Boeing and Douglas? They only produced their B707 and DC8 after the Comet was introduced.

For the same reason the Soviets put a satellite in space before the US -- someone will always be the first, and there's nothing anywhere that says it has to be the US.

The conventional wisdom at the time was that jet engines were too inefficient on fuel to be cost effective in commercial travel, especially over long distances. It was Geoffrey de Havilland who challenged this when he was on the Brabazon committee and championed the idea that a pure jet airliner should be on the list of required airliner types.

His motives aren't entirely clear - it could be that his experience with with the H-1/Goblin engine used in the Meteor and designed by his friend Frank Halford meant that he had a better understanding of the benefits jet engines could bring to airliners or you could take the cynical view that since he not only owned an aircraft design company but also had close ties to pretty much the only serious manufacturer of jet engines in Britain at the time (Halford Engines which would become de Havilland Engine company in 1943) that having a jet airliner on the list meant that his company would be essentially a dead certainty to get the contract. So he stood to make a great deal of money out the idea, he had certainly done well out of providing jet engines to the military and a jet-based passenger liner would be the way to ensure continued prosperity when the war came to an end.

As for why they "got there first" well there's lots of reasons - the British and the Germans had invented and patented turbojets first, American efforts didn't really start until GE built the W.1 (with the help of Whittle) and the early years of American jet power was all done using licensed British designs.

Secondly you're forgetting that at the time Boeing was primarily a military supplier, it wasn't until they developed the 707 that they had any significant presence in civil aviation. Douglas had grown rapidly during the War but found itself struggling after the WWII ended - the government orders stopped and they were left with a surplus of aircraft. Going into the jetliner business would have been very risky and very difficult for them at a time when they were struggling.

So did Canada with the Avro Canada Jetliner, at exactly the same time pretty much. The Jetliner was complementary to the Comet, being a shorter range intercity airplane. It made a sales tour of the US in 1950 and was a huge sensation. Avro Canada was ordered to set the project aside for the CF-100 All Weather Interceptor program during the early 50s so Avro Canada had to decline US airline interest resulting from its sales tour (and a bizarre Howard Hughes/TWA subplot) and the program never really got traction after that as the company went on to put all its resources into the Arrow supersonic interceptor program by the mid 50s. Odd that the Jetliner had its legs cut out from under it by government politics (the Jetliner was initially designed to a state-owned Trans Canada Airlines specification, who later back out) and the Comet by a fatal design flaw, so in the end Boeing prevailed anyway.

The main reason for the US lag was that jet engines were considered by private US airlines to be too immature as a technology to be used for commercial travel in the late 40s, so there was little market interest in the US until an actual aircraft was demonstrated (one factor: first generation commercial turbojets with crude fuel controllers, like the Jetliner's RR Derwents, were very difficult to manage). On the other hand, both the Comet and Jetliner were developed as products for state owned airlines (BOAC and Trans Canada Airlines) wanting to be bold, so they were ostensibly private ventures but with a "guaranteed" state buyer for at least initial production, providing a huge leg up.

There was no US equivalent in the private airline sector in the late 40s/early 50s, only the US military, where the 707 actually got its start.