A Brief History of the Airlines and Air Cargo USA Part Five

As 1958 began, Pan American had begun trans-atlantic service with the Boeing 707. This airplane however, was
the "original" version of the jet airliner, designed for domestic service. This Boeing 707-120 "series" had a range of 3100 miles and was not capable of flying the lucrative North Atlantic route nonstop (neither was the British De Havilland DH-106 Comet 4). The 707-120 was the first of a trio of basic 707's suited to various initial needs.

In early 1959, American Airlines began service with the Lockheed L-188 Electra II, prop-jet, over the medium to
intermediate range routes. On January 27, 1959, another jet airliner appeared on the scene, the Convai 880. The work began at Convair, after the failed attempt to secure the production rights for the Avro Jetliner, as early as 1956.
Originally called the Convair 600 "Golden Arrow", the airplane had been originally concieved to have gold tinted
skin panels. Capable of operating from shorter runways, yet have comparable capacity to the Boeing 707 and Douglas DC-8 rivals. The technology of the Convair 600 featured a thin wing in which had been proven on the numerous military fighters and bombers made for the USAF. Coupled with modified military turbo jet engines,
promised better performance than the rivals, and thus the fastest airliner in the world. By the time the airplane
flew for the first time, the name had changed to represent its speed. Expressed in feet per second, 600 became
880. However, due to excessive delays in development and production, the new 880 was smaller than promised and
as a result only a few airlines ordered it. In the US, only Delta, TWA amd Alaska Airlines would put the 880 in their
fleets. By this time Convair had begun work on an improved design called the 990, to be introduced within a few years.