1953: LONDON to TOKYO in Just 36 HOURS! | Newsreel | Retro Transport | BBC Archive
“In a day and a half, the comet has flown over 14 countries, travelled over half way round the world, and cut what until this morning was an 86-hour journey, into a 36-hour one.”
The BOAC Comet now travels from London to Tokyo, more than halving the time it takes to travel between the two great cities. The first official flight is today, but BBC television cameras went on an earlier training flight to see what the journey is going to be like. Charles Gardner reports.
Clip taken from BBC Television Newsreel, originally broadcast on BBC Television, 3 April, 1953.
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43 Comments
1:50 幻の島が映っている。
I couldn't have lived in the UK in the 50s, those plummy accents would've driven me insane.
👍
Just imagine future generations in 2097 watching YouTube – "2025: LONDON to TOKYO in just 14 hours! Retro Transport Newsreel from the BBC Archive!"
Phili-PINES.. LOL.. Wow to see Manila without its horrendous traffic jam. Wow 36 hours flight, and me complaining when needing to take a 15hour flight from Asia to Europe.
This Comet air frame (Yoke Peter) was the third Comet built. It was lost in January 1954 due to an explosive decompression on the route between Rome and London. The loss was the second of three catastrophic accidents that lead to the grounding of the Comet fleet.
さすがBBCさんだけあって手の込んだ制作です。ただ、沖縄と小笠原が混同されてます。銀座のビルは今も変わらず31m、空が広くて気持ちがいい。
the Philip Pine 🙂
TF??!! Philli-PINES?!!!??
Oh, thanks for sharing this!
I always wondered what the route to tokyo was like, since the other newsreel available is the service to johannesburg.
Oooh just seeing those square windows with their high propensity for stress fractures at the corners is making me wince….
"Flying from London Airport…"
Typical BA, if it aint Heathrow, they don't want to know.
How much did a ticket cost in todays money?
11:40 who order #18 for 44?
How typical BBC bigotry and British chauvinism, each stop and the respective cities shown as a sign of a developmental scape – Bangkok, Phillipines, and only a snake charmer shown in India 😂
There was a wonderful article in an aviation magazine, the flight was from England to India in 1946. In a Shandrigham, Avro York, DC3… something like Dover, Rome, Cairo, Aden…with all stops within the British Empire.
Since Okinawa was under U.S. military occupation at that time, it could not be filmed.
British Planes seem to have design flaws Comet Concorde
The Comet was a deathtrap!
Back when Pakistan was the Dubai hub 😔 and serviced international traffic.
With the 1950’s technology, I must commend the pilot.
I find it beautiful because everything was in black and white along with the music! ✌️
It's quite hard to realise that most if not all of the people in this film are long since passed.
Even new born babies then would be 73 years old today.
Ngl this video is kinda cool. You get to see different cities and countries and their conditions in their era also seeing the coral reefs and plane taking off from passenger seat in the 50s seems surreal to me
Okinawa's location is way off
But I'm surprised it took 36 hours
0:59 “London airport”
Times were so simple back then
You need 25 days one way to travel by ship to Tokyo and another 25 days back home, and spend 2-5 days in Tokyo. Flying cut the travel to 36 hours, it is nothing compared to flying a A350 or B777, but back in 1953 36 hours it pretty is damn impressive and making travel more accessible to more people.
Karachi, the largest metropolitan city of Pakistan
It was this very plane, the comet, that spelled the end of the UK in the race to make jetliners. These planes were blowing up in the sky for unexplained reason until they were finally grounded And tested. The culprit were the square windows. By then it was too late and Boeing had forged ahead with their own brand of jet planes ironically implementing the research done by the uk and naturally avoiding square windows.
3:00 Islamabad not Karachi is capital of Pakistan
8:46 Philippines was known as ❝Bandit country❞ !!! 😆😝😆
Nonstop LHR-NRT now in 13 hours 30 mins 🙂
I was thinking max 2 stops.
It took 4 months with 9 stops from Riverpool to Yokohama back in 1903.
Sad that structurally the Comet was not up to this route for long. It was truly breathtaking to look at, sadly it should have been built as a more robust aircraft. We learned of the deficiency of squared windows. A shame this could not have been figured out before so many lives were lost! The Comet was a rush job to be ahead of the 707. Like good brewing take the time and get it right!
Too bad they didnt have wind tunnand stress testing back then.
Back then Dubai or UAE 🇦🇪 wasnt exist
Those kids almost at my dad age
Als Thailand noch "Siam " hieß 😊 da geht es heute schon schneller Vienna Airport tu Haneda Airport Direktflug ca 10 h 👍🇦🇹 mit ANA
My Karachi in 1953 was an important airport
Travel was still such an adventure then. Not many places left that don't have an all-inclusive resort connected to the airport by a private shuttle service.
Interessante!!! Em Tóquio, havia tanto os carros com o volante à direita quanto os com volante à esquerda!!!
0439hrs to go for JA05WJ, JAL44 to complete the same flight in 1354hrs, LHR-HND ❤A350. 0410Z (GMT) 200325