A Dinky (#702) De Havilland Comet 1, G-ALYV ‘Yoke Victor’
Dr Matt McCullock
‘Yoke Victor’ was the eighth Comet built and first flew on 9th April 1952. It was the first Comet to crash shortly after take-off from Calcutta on 2nd May 1953.
The toy was released in October 1954 and originally had the registration G-ALYV, but as this was the registration of a crashed Comet, this was soon changed to G-ALYX.
As the first jet airliner, the Comet occupied a unique place in aviation for several years and became a source of British pride in the late 1940s and early 1950s. In the third-year module Remembering Postwar Britain, and using Correlli Barnett’s The Collapse of British Power, we explore the Comet as an illusion of British prestige and influence in the nascent Cold War World. The Comet was a significant technological advancement, but to what extent did this mask relative British decline?
Correlli Barnett The Collapse of British Power (William Morrow & Company, Inc, New York, 1972)