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Pressurization cycles is what killed the reputation of the first commercial civilian jet, the De Havilland Comet.

The British were good in early jet design and actually introduced jet aircraft into the non-military world, but the early hulls would fail catastrophically after a certain, relatively low # of cycles, tearing the fuselage apart mid-flight and killing everyone on board. After several such incidents in short order, the entire fleet was grounded and scientists came up with solutions, but by then, the reputation of Comets was tarnished and Boeing came with a competing 707 model.

These days, the UK does not have a domestic jet manufacturer anymore.



That wasn't really a cycles issue exactly, it was they used square windows rather than round, leading to stress concentrations.

Per your last point, BAE and Hawker are still around. The UK also does plenty of Airbus work.


The stress concentration became a big problem because of the fatigue cycles though didn’t it?

The manufacturers you mentioned are all military or regulatory sop manufacturers no? Though I guess Boeing isn’t much better, so meh.


Hawker still makes bizjets.




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