Early History
The first airliners with turbojet propulsion were experimental conversions of the Avro Lancastrian piston engined airliner, which were flown with several types of early jet engine, including the de Havilland Ghost and the Rolls-Royce Nene. These, however, retained the two inboard piston engines, the jets being housed in the outboard nacelles, and these aircraft were therefore of 'mixed' propulsion. The first airliner with full jet power was the Nene-powered Vickers VC.1 Viking G-AJPH, which first flew on 6 April 1948.
The early jet airliners possessed much lower levels of noise and vibration than contemporary piston-engined ones, so much so that in 1947, after piloting a jet powered aircraft for the first time, Wing Commander Maurice A. Smith, then-Editor of Flight magazine, stated; "Piloting a jet aircraft has confirmed one opinion I had formed after flying as a passenger in the Lancastrian jet test beds, that few, if any, having flown in a jet-propelled transport, will wish to revert to the noise, vibration and attendant fatigue of an airscrew-propelled piston-engined aircraft"
Read more about this topic: Jet Airliner
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“There is one great fact, characteristic of this our nineteenth century, a fact which no party dares deny. On the one hand, there have started into life industrial and scientific forces which no epoch of former human history had ever suspected. On the other hand, there exist symptoms of decay, far surpassing the horrors recorded of the latter times of the Roman empire. In our days everything seems pregnant with its contrary.”
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