The first domestic operator of jets in the United States?

[Guest fullstoplanding]

Trivia question for a slow day. :( What airline was the first domestic operator of jets in the United States?Roger

[Chock 17,769]

Going with the title of the thread: The first domestic operator of jets in the United States?Tricky one to pin down exactly, depends on the criteria. As far as I know, the best contender would be General Electric, when they built a copy of the Gloster jet engine, ultimately for use in the Bell P-59 Airocomet.But if we mean the first jet capable of carrying passengers and designed to do that, and which was built and flown in the US, then a good claim would be the XC-123 assault glider built by Chase for the US Air Force (which, bizarrely, eventually became the C-123 Provider, built by Fairchild).Going with the content of your post rather than the title (i.e adding the 'airline' criteria):Sticking strictly to non-military stuff, Boeing have a decent claim to the title, with the 367-80, which of course became the 707, but Boeing isn't really an airline, so then again Pan Am and Capital both have a sort of claim, because both ordered the DeHavilland Comet, although they cancelled their orders when Comets started dropping out of the skies, so strictly speaking they were never actual operators of it.Keeing to just airlines with types they put into service:The first domestic US airline to operate the 707 was Pan Am, but that wasn't a domestic flight, American Airlines made the first US domestic flight in the 707, but the first airline to properly schedule domestic US flights with the 707 was Continental. So there's an argument in favour of all of them depending on how you spin it.Al

[Guest fullstoplanding]

Hi Al,Here's what I've got. National Airlines.http://www.geocities.com/nationalairlines1/history.htmScroll down to the 11th paragraph.I was looking up National Airlines for different reasons than the answer to the question when I saw that about the first domestic airline, etc. I thought it would be an interesting topic for Hangar Chat.Roger

[Chock 17,769]

Interesting. I certainly would not claim the stuff I wrote was the definite answer, more of an educated guess than anything, and it seems it isn't that educated from that link you posted!Like yourself, I figured it would be interesting to throw in a few odd ones in to liven stuff up, such as the P-59 and the XC-123.Al