The Caravelle: the first rear-engined jet airliner

Published

2026-11-13

Updated

2026-11-13

Facts checked

2026-10-27

The Sud Aviation Caravelle carried its two jets not on the wing but on the rear fuselage, and Airbus, heir to the company that built it, calls it the first rear-engined commercial airliner. It first flew from Toulouse on 27 May 1955, the date given by Airbus and by INA, the French audiovisual archive. Wind-tunnel tests showed the wing clear of the engines and promised an exceptionally quiet cabin, and the Pima Air & Space Museum describes the gain in the same terms: a quieter cabin and better performance on one engine. SAS, by its own account, was the first to put the Caravelle into scheduled service, with a flight from Copenhagen to Beirut on 26 April 1959; Air France followed on 6 May, and in 1961 United Air Lines flew it between New York and Chicago. The layout went further than the aircraft: the Smithsonian credits it with giving rise to the Douglas DC-9 and the Boeing 727.

A French jet for medium routes

The Caravelle began as a government project. In November 1951, Flight reported, the technical service of the French government, the Ministry of Transport and several aircraft companies met to formulate a specification: a new medium-range transport weighing 35 to 40 tonnes, powered by any French turbojet then available (Flight, May 1955). INA, the French national audiovisual archive, describes the programme from the civil aviation secretariat as a jet transport that would carry at least 7 tonnes of payload at an average cruising speed of 700 km/h (INA). Starting in 1951, TIME later wrote, Sud got to work on the transport.

Besides the SNCASE design that became the Caravelle, five other projects were submitted. The SNCASO and Breguet designs were not proceeded with; a Latécoère design needed by-pass turbojets, and none was then available; a design from SNCAN was held up for the same reason; and the Hurel Dubois 45 was at first accepted. By April 1952 the Caravelle project had been finalised, and detail design began on it and on the Hurel Dubois H.D.45, which was later dropped, leaving the Caravelle alone in the field. SNCASE submitted its final proposals in June 1952 and received official approval in September; serious design work for the "Moyen Courier" competition started in October 1952, and by 1954 there was an order for two prototypes (Flight, September 1954).

The aircraft was meant to work from the airfields France already had, in Europe and in its African possessions, and to depend less on ground equipment than equivalent piston airliners. It carried its own batteries to start the engines, and the passenger stairs were lowered by a hydraulic jack from under the tail. Its first market was the seasonal traffic between Paris and North Africa, with stages of about 1,000 miles, though the cabin was sized for stages of up to 1,500 nautical miles. At first the S.E.210 was to be called Annapurna; early on it became the Caravelle, which Air France explains as a reference to Christopher Columbus.

Why the engines went to the tail

The layout began with an engine that was not powerful enough. SNCASE first chose the French Atar, which could then deliver 2,800 kg (6,170 lb) of thrust, and that meant three engines. The third would have to sit on the centre-line, so the tail suggested itself, and it seemed there was much to gain by grouping all three engines there (Flight, May 1955).

Wind-tunnel tests showed that the problems of such an unusual arrangement were far smaller than expected, and that there were even some very significant advantages. The wing was clear of interference from the engines, and so were the flaps. All the fuel was in the wing, well away from the engines, which greatly reduced the risk of fire. Noise in the cabin promised to be exceptionally low. In a wheels-up landing the engines would not touch the ground, and with one engine out the aircraft was easier to handle: the company claimed that full thrust from one engine at take-off could be held with 6 degrees of rudder.

In 1952 it became clear that much more powerful engines would arrive in time. SNCASE turned to a late mark of the Rolls-Royce Avon, expected to give 4,200 kg of thrust, so that two Avons gave as much power as three Atars. The basic layout did not change. Three Avons would have greatly improved performance and range, but the company said that would have put the Caravelle in direct rivalry with the Comet 3, and it had no intention of going beyond the medium-range specification.

In April 1959 the Caravelle's chief designer, Pierre Satre, the man responsible for the original concept and its pioneering engine installation, was asked by Flight whether he still believed in rear-mounted engines and in twin engines. His answer: all single-engined jet fighters had, effectively, rear-mounted engines, and "even the ancient Chinese rockets used such an installation". The Avons were mounted high on the rear fuselage to avoid swallowing foreign objects, and even if he had wanted four engines, there was no engine of 7,000 to 8,000 lb thrust as well tried as the Avon (Flight, April 1959).

A nose from the Comet

The nose was British. In 1954 Flight described the prototype's fuselage ending in a Comet cockpit, bought complete from de Havilland (Flight, September 1954). In its detailed description of May 1955, Flight noted that frame number 7, just behind the windscreen, marked the joint between the Comet nose section and the French fuselage, and in 1956 Flight noted that because the nose was identical with the Comet's, the flight deck was laid out very much like it. In Flight's flight-test report of 1957, the windscreens and the general dimensions of the cockpit were still those of the Comet (Flight, December 1957).

The British equipment went far beyond the nose. Satre chose components for reliability and availability, and the result, in Flight's words, was "a curiously polyglot equipment schedule": besides the Comet cockpit, fuel equipment from Flight Refuelling, Lockheed pumps and servo units, a Rotax starter panel, Graviner fire protection, Kent flowmeters, Smiths fuel gauges, Dunlop wheels, tyres and brakes and the Rolls-Royce Avons all came from Great Britain.

The Comet's experience mattered for more than parts. Designing a jet airliner was a difficult task indeed, Flight wrote in May 1955, "particularly in view of the events of last year". SNCASE had the benefit of a close liaison with de Havilland, and a number of features were prepared in the light of the English company's experience. Flight's reporter asked above all about the pressure cabin and the strength of the windows and cut-outs; the answer included "the now customary tank-tests". In 1956 the magazine added that the systems and the structural fatigue design were among the features prepared in the light of de Havilland experience (Flight, July 1956). For an article of 1955, last year was 1954, the year of the Comet crashes; what happened is told in The de Havilland Comet: the first jet airliner and the 1954 crashes.

The cabin had 28 windows, 11 of them inward-opening emergency exits, and normally seated 70 passengers five abreast, or 91 in a high-density version. Air France remembered the type as easy to recognise by its ovoid windows, rear engines and retractable stairs. In 1960 a Flight columnist looked back. "We gave them the Comet's nose, Rolls-Royce Avon engines, hydraulic system, Redux and numerous other things," he wrote. "But it was a French concept, backed by the French government, and built by half the French aircraft industry." Few in Britain had expected this "partner for the Comet" to compete with two generations of British jet airliners, and he recalled that in 1957 Sud had offered to join forces with the British on the Caravelle (Flight, February 1960).

First flight and first orders, 1955-1958

Metal was first cut in February 1953, and the prototype, F-WHHH, was rolled out at Toulouse on 21 April 1955. According to INA, it made its first taxi run on 13 May and its first flight, lasting 41 minutes, on 27 May 1955 from Toulouse-Blagnac, with Pierre Nadot in command, André Moynet as co-pilot, Jean Avril as flight mechanic and Roger Béteille as engineer; Airbus gives the same date (INA). Flight reported at the time that Nadot first flew the aircraft on 28 May and made two circuits of the airfield in a trouble-free 22 minutes (Flight, June 1955). Béteille went on to become chief engineer of the A300 programme at Sud Aviation in 1967 (Airbus, 2019).

In May 1955 there were no firm orders yet, but production was being planned for a probable run of 50 aircraft. Air France had taken part in the project from the beginning: an electrical expert, a structural engineer and a pilot from the airline were attached to the company as advisers. The first cost of a Caravelle was estimated at 425 million francs, about £439,000. In February 1956 Air France ordered 12 Caravelles and took an option on 12 more; in May the prototype received a restricted certificate of airworthiness. The aircraft had been designed to American civil air regulations so that it could also be certified in the United States, and SNCASE itself built only half of each aircraft, sharing the work with the other main state-owned companies. In 1957 SNCASE merged with SNCASO to form Sud Aviation (Air France).

1959: SAS first, Air France next

Madame de Gaulle named the first Air France Caravelle on 24 March 1959. The French certificate of airworthiness followed on 2 April, according to INA, and in April Flight reported that the Caravelle had also received its American certificate (Flight, 17 April 1959). Toulouse was building at full speed. An assembly hall of 172,000 square feet, 820 feet long, had gone up in four months; Sud's four factories worked 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to deliver 25 Caravelles by the end of the year and five a month in 1960, with 318 subcontractors.

The first airline to fly it, by its own account, was SAS: in 1959 it was ahead of all the others in putting the Caravelle into scheduled operation, and the first flight linked Copenhagen and Beirut (SAS, 2006). The SAS Museum dates the inaugural flight to Beirut, the first jet service to the Middle East, to 26 April 1959 (SAS Museum). Air France started on 6 May 1959, when the Caravelle F-BHRA Alsace took off from Orly for Rome, Athens and Istanbul (Air France). Flight had expected a slightly later start: in April it gave 12 May for Air France on the Paris - Istanbul route and 15 May for SAS.

The aircraft that entered service had two Rolls-Royce RA.29/1 engines of 10,500 lb thrust each and cruised at 405 knots. From the 36th production aircraft the RA.29/3 was to give 11,400 lb and a cruising speed of 430 knots, and Satre already planned a version with Rolls-Royce RB.141 engines that would cruise at 860 km/h and double the range to 3,000 kilometres.

United and the American market

In February 1960 the Caravelle made what TIME called its first big breakthrough in the United States. Douglas announced that it would sell the French twin-jet, which TIME described as an airliner for up to 80 passengers at 500 miles an hour, with exclusive rights in the United States, Latin America and parts of Asia and Africa. Once orders passed 50, Douglas would build the Caravelle in America, and TIME concluded that Douglas would probably not build its own medium-range DC-9. In Denver, United Airlines announced a $60 million order for 20 Caravelles with an option on 20 more, the first time United had bought anything but American aircraft. General Electric bought one as a flying showroom for its CJ-805-23 engine (TIME, 1960).

TIME explained the success simply. American manufacturers had sewn up the market for big long-range jets, with 441 orders worth $2.2 billion, but no one was producing a smaller jet for routes of less than 1,000 miles. A Caravelle cost $2.5 to $3 million, about half the price of a DC-8 or a Boeing 707, and after its first flights eight airlines, among them Air France, SAS, Alitalia, Sabena and Varig, had ordered 60. The magazine gave the credit to Georges Héreil, the head of Sud Aviation. From the start the Caravelle had been aimed at the big American airlines, with bolts and rivets for all removable parts made to American standards. "I don't believe in commercial chauvinism," said Héreil. Developing the aircraft had cost $80 million. How Pan Am put the 707 into service is told in October 1958: Pan Am, the 707 and America's first transatlantic jet service.

United's aircraft were the Caravelle VI-R. Flight expected the designation 6RU to show that reverse thrust was fitted and that the customer was United. The Pima Air & Space Museum notes that the VI-R introduced thrust reversers and spoilers to improve landing performance (Pima Air & Space Museum). United began Caravelle services between New York and Chicago on 14 July 1961, with three non-stop round trips a day, including evening "Executive" flights for men only (Flight, July 1961). All 20 aircraft were due by the end of the following January, and it was the first time British jet engines, the Rolls-Royce Avon 532R, had entered service with an American airline (Flight, 20 July 1961).

After the Caravelle

In Airbus's history of its predecessors, the Caravelle built by SNCASE, later Sud Aviation, was the first rear-engined commercial airliner, and it introduced other technical firsts such as hydraulically assisted servo controls and all-weather landing capability. Altogether 282 were built in eight variants (Airbus). The Pima museum calls it the first jet airliner designed with its engines on the rear fuselage, a choice that made the cabin quieter and improved performance on one engine compared with aircraft that carried their engines on the wing. For the Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace at Le Bourget it was the first French civil jet transport and an international success, innovative for its tail-mounted engines and fully hydraulic flight controls. The museum's own Caravelle 12, F-GCVL, flew for Sterling Airways from 1972 to 1983, then for Air Inter until 1991 and Air Provence until 1995; its record lists two Pratt & Whitney JT8D-9 engines of 6,580 kg thrust and 131 passengers (Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace).

At Air France the Caravelle became the spearhead of the European and Mediterranean network. Pilots praised its gentle handling, and its large wing made a soft "kiss landing" easier. It was soon replaced by the more efficient Boeing 727 and 737, and Sud Aviation moved on to Concorde and then the first Airbus, the A300. Air France flew Caravelles until 1981 and operated 54 of them in all.

Engines at the tail soon appeared on other airliners. In the early 1960s, the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum writes, new aircraft brought jet comfort, speed and efficiency to short and medium routes, and the pioneering design of the Caravelle, with its two rear-mounted jets, gave rise to the Douglas DC-9 and the Boeing 727 (Smithsonian). In the Soviet Union the Tu-134, a deep redesign of the Tu-124, also carried its turbofans on the rear fuselage; its prototype first flew on 29 July 1963, and it began regular passenger service in the autumn of 1967 (Tupolev). More aircraft of the period are on the aircraft shelf.

Fly an airline of 1955

• Era: Jet Age, 1955
• Base: Paris, ORY
• In the catalog: Sud Aviation Caravelle III, from 1959

Start in 1955

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