Boeing 707 Douglas competition, Boeing soon realized this would not provide a viable payload, so it widened the fuselage to to allow five-abreast seating and use of the KC-135's tooling. Douglas Aircraft had launched its DC-8 with a fuselage width of . The airlines liked the extra space and six-abreast seating, so Boeing increased the 707's width again to compete, this time to . The first flight of the first-production 707-120 took place on December 20, 1957, and FAA certification followed on September 18, 1958. Both test pilots Joseph John "Tym" Tymczyszyn and James R. Gannett were awarded the first Iven C.
Boeing 707 CFM56, and is 40 dB quieter than JT3D engines that are being replaced. The first commercial orders for the 707 came on October 13, 1955, when Pan Am committed to 20 707s and 25 Douglas DC-8s, dramatically increasing their passenger capacity (in available revenue passenger seat-miles per hour/per day) over its existing fleet of propeller aircraft. The competition between the 707 and Douglas DC-8 was fierce. Pan American ordered these planes, when and as they did, so that they would be the operators of the "first-off" production line for each aircraft type. Until their initial batch of the aircraft had