Capital Airlines Lockheed Constellations. In 1955 they became the first U.S. operator of the British manufactured, four engine Vickers Viscount, the first passenger turboprop airliner. The Viscount propjets were deployed on the flagship Washington-Chicago route and the airline had planned to fly them on expanded service; however, Capital was mostly stymied by the federal Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB). The CAB also refused Capital a requested subsidy. Still, Capital's passenger-miles in 1957 were 88% more than 1955. On November 14, 1956 a Capital pilot reported seeing a blue-white ball in the sky. The pilot, Captain William J. Hull, was a senior captain who
Fixed-wing aircraft went into service with the German Luftwaffe and later in the war the British Gloster Meteor entered service but never saw action — top airspeeds of aircraft for that era went as high as 1,130 km/h (702 mph), with the early July 1944 unofficial record flight of the German Me 163B V18 rocket fighter prototype. In October 1947, the Bell X-1 was the first aircraft to exceed the speed of sound. In 1948–49, aircraft transported supplies during the Berlin Blockade. New aircraft types, such as the B-52, were produced during the Cold War. The first jet airliner, the de Havilland