Jet plane history from the BBC, Whittle, the Comet, etc..

The BBC aired a show a couple of weeks ago that covered a bit of the history of Jets and I found it to be interesting so I thought I'd post it here for anyone else who is is interested.

All clips are about 10MB each.

The first clip looks at the history of Frank Whittle, the British inventor of the Jet Engine. It shows how the British government didn't put their backing behind his project until after the Germans beat them to the punch with the Heinkel He-178 jet plane. (Clip is about 7 minutes long).

Frank Whittle


The Heinkel He-178


Gloster

Jets-special-Frank-Whittle-BBC


The second clip discusses the first commercial passenger Jet, the Comet and the Boeng 707. (about 3 minutes)

Jets-special-Comet-and-707-BBC


The third clip discusses the B52 bomber. (about 3 minutes)

Jets-special-B52-Bomber-BBC-


The final clip is on the Boeing 747: (about 2.5 minutes)

Jets-special-747-BBC

The Airbus had not taken off yet when this special aired but I'll add the video here anyway as it's an important even in Jet plane history.

Airbus-A380-first-takeoff-20050427