Redesign of the De Havilland Comet enabled Boeing to take the lead in aviation with its commercial jet, the 707.

Boeing emerged from World War II as the leading builder of large aircraft. But when Boeing President William Allen saw the de Havilland Comet at a British air show in 1950, he knew that the future of the commercial airliner lay in jets. Boeing estimated a jet airliner's development would cost approximately $16 million, a figure which at the time represented twenty percent of the company's entire value. By the time development of the 707 actually concluded, development costs had surpassed $185 million - more than the company's total net worth. Boeing's development of a commercial jet airliner was a gamble on which the entire company was bet.

In 1954, the prototype model 367-80 rolled out of Boeing's Renton, Washington factory. But the Dash 80, as it was called, was built primarily to satisfy military requirements. In order to succeed as a commercial airliner, Boeing's jet would need a modified design. One significant advancement was that the decision to standardize every part of the airplane. Standardization allowed Boeing to customize planes to airlines' specifications. The Boeing assembly line, it was joked, produced one continuous fuselage, cut into desired segment lengths, as if it were sausage. Over the course of its production run, the 707 would be modified into the greatest number of variations of any plane ever built.

The Boeing 707 could accommodate twice as many passengers as the De Havilland Comet.

The 707 entered commercial service in 1958 when Pan Am flew it from New York to Paris in eight hours and 41 minutes - twice as fast as a propeller plane. Mounted with four engines - each able to produce 13,000 pounds of thrust - the production model 707 boasted a cruising speed of 575 miles an hour. This was 225 miles an hour faster than its nearest propeller-powered rival. With the 707, Boeing quickly took the lead in jet manufacturing. It would be another year before Douglas came out with its first jet, the DC-8. De Havilland's redesign of the Comet actually preceded the 707 by a few weeks, but the Comet could only accommodate about half the number of passengers as the 707.

Over the years, the basic design form of the 707 was preserved in many of the Boeing jets which followed. The standard fuselage width of the 707, for instance, is shared by the 727, the 737 and the 757. By the time its production run ended in 1991, over one thousand Boeing 707s had been constructed. Ultimately, the 707 proved to be a bet which paid huge dividends for Boeing.

 
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