Boeing 367-80

The Boeing 367-80, or "Dash 80" as it was called within Boeing, is an American prototype jet transport built to demonstrate the advantages of jet aircraft for passenger transport over piston-engined airliners. Considered to be the prototype for the Boeing 707 airliner, the C-135 (including the best known variant, the KC-135 air tanker used by the United States Air Force) and the E-3 AWACS aircraft, the Dash 80 was built in less than two years fro... more

The Boeing 367-80, or "Dash 80" as it was called within Boeing, is an American prototype jet transport built to demonstrate the advantages of jet aircraft for passenger transport over piston-engined airliners. Considered to be the prototype for the Boeing 707 airliner, the C-135 (including the best known variant, the KC-135 air tanker used by the United States Air Force) and the E-3 AWACS aircraft, the Dash 80 was built in less than two years from project launch in 1952 to rollout on May 14, 1954 for a cost of US$16 million. This was at the time an enormous risk for the Boeing Company, since they had no committed customers for the project. Only one example of the type was built which exists today in the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, an annex of the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum located at Washington Dulles International Airport, Virginia, United States. By the late 1940s, two developments were encouraging Boeing to begin considering the possibility of building... less