[wolfpat]

If I'm not mistaken, that's the view out of the window of the first Boeing 707 doing a victory roll over Seattle during it's maiden flight. This was thought impossible to do in an aircraft designed for passenger travel.

[marmar]

It reminded me of the pennypods that were flown on the nose of the A10 Warthogs and used to take pics....

[mordo]

first Boeing 707 doing a victory roll over Seattle during it's maiden flight. This was thought impossible to do in an aircraft designed for passenger travel. Yeh its kind of fitting you think?

[Lexinom]

I wouldn't try it in a newer jet.

[jaydubya2]

That's Tex Johnson at the controls. Aerodynamically rolling a 707 is very possible. Top brass at Boeing agreed there was no harm in doing that stunt, but it gave some an uneasy felling. They asked him not to do it again.

[Mr. K]

just damm~!! I wish the pilot of the next plane I fly on would do a couple of rolls like that~! woo hoo~!!

[Mr. Silverback]

Not the maiden flight, but at a demonstration over a boat race. Brass from several airlines were aboard the Boeing Company yacht, and were mightily impressed with the roll.

In a way, Boeing was made that day as an airliner company, they had been running a distant third in the passenger business for decades up until then.

[ChefKeith]

Correct

On August 6th, 1955, Boeing test pilot Tex Johnston performed a "Barrel roll" in the Dash-80 at 500 feet (he gained altitude to 1500 feet during the roll) not once, but twice (this story apears on a video called 'Frontiers of Flight - The Jet Airliner', produced by the National Air and Space Museum in association with the Smithsonian Institution in 1992). To date Tex is the only pilot to have performed this in a four engine jet transport (of course, other big four engine jet aircraft have done barrel rolls. The Vulcan XA890 was rolled by Roly Falk on the first day of the '55 Farnborough Airshow, but it was a subsonic bomber).