In the late 1950s Convair had a simple pitch for the jet age: if you cannot build the biggest airliner, build the fastest. The Convair 880 was named for its speed, and when it entered service some in aviation circles claimed that at 615 mph (990 km/h) it was the fastest jet transport in the world.

Speed did not sell. Only 65 Convair 880s were built between 1959 and 1962, the programme was knotted up in Howard Hughes' battle for control of TWA, and together with its stretched cousin it handed General Dynamics one of the largest corporate losses in American history to that point.

Smaller, Faster, Later

The Convair 880 was born in a market that Boeing and Douglas had already carved up. Convair began work on a medium-range jet in April 1956, aiming to compete with the 707 and DC-8 by being smaller but quicker, a niche that turned out not to exist in any numbers.

The name changed several times on the way. The design started as the Skylark, became the Golden Arrow, then the Convair 600, and finally the 880. Both numbers referred to its top speed: 600 mph, or 880 feet per second.

The speed came from fighter technology. The 880 used General Electric CJ805-3 turbojets, a civilian version of the J79 that powered the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, Die McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II and Convair's own B-58 Hustler. GE removed the military afterburner to create the commercial variant, its first jet airliner engine.

Delta's 1960 promotional film for its new Convair 880.

The Howard Hughes Problem

Convair's launch customer came with complications attached. Convair engineers worked out the 880's specification with Howard Hughes, who controlled Trans World Airlines, and Hughes ordered 30 in mid-1956, according to both GE and the US Centennial of Flight Commission. Delta soon ordered 10.

Hughes then made the order complicated. To avoid outside financing, GE recounts, he bought the aircraft through his own Hughes Tool Company and planned to lease them to TWA. The Centennial of Flight Commission says Hughes also had Convair sign a one-year exclusive contract that effectively blocked sales to other airlines, even though he did not yet have the money to pay for the planes.

By the time the 880 began flight testing in 1959, TWA's board members had sued Hughes, claiming he delayed deliveries to avoid paying for them, and stories circulated of Hughes' field inspectors slowing progress in San Diego. The TWA aircraft were finally delivered in December 1960, after Hughes found the financing.

The delay was a gift to Boeing. While the 880 was stuck, Boeing launched the 720, a minimal modification of the 707 that could be sold for significantly less, and United Airlines ordered it.

Hughes' own grip on the airline did not survive the saga. By the time the 880 entered service in 1960, GE notes, he had been forced to give up control of TWA, which he had run for more than 25 years. By then the 707 and DC-8 had proved themselves with key airlines, and sales of the Convair jet stalled with a handful of customers.

Why Airlines Said No

The Convair 880's first example flew on 27 January 1959; there was no prototype. After production started, the Federal Aviation Administration demanded extra instrumentation, and rather than rip apart the cabin over the wing, Convair added a raceway hump on top of the fuselage.

Delta put the type into service in May 1960. Beyond Delta and TWA, the 880 was flown by Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines, Northeast Airlines, Swissair and VIASA. It was never a big list.

The 880's problems were basic economics. Its five-abreast seating made it unattractive to airlines, and its GE engines burned more fuel for the thrust they made than the Pratt and Whitney JT3Cs on Boeing's jets. GE's own history of the programme acknowledges durability problems with the CJ805 too, including fan-blade cracking.

An overview of how the 880 and its 990 development fared.

Convair tried to improve the breed with the 880-M, which added leading-edge slats, Krueger flaps, a power-boosted rudder, more thrust, more fuel and stronger landing gear. A more radical development, the stretched 990 Coronado, ran in parallel from 1961. That aircraft has its own story, told in Afterburner's Convair 990 Coronado feature.

The Flying Edsel

The bill was enormous. General Dynamics lost around $185 million on the 880 over its lifetime, according to Wikipedia, which notes that some sources estimate much higher. The Centennial of Flight Commission puts Convair's losses on the 880 and 990 together at $425 million, the largest loss by a company in United States history up to that time, ahead of Ford's ill-fated Edsel car.

Production of the 880 ended in 1962 after 65 aircraft, and the 990 followed a year later after 37. Convair never built another jetliner.

GE drew a different lesson. Brian Rowe, who ran CJ805 product support and later led GE Aviation from 1979 to 1992, argued that standing behind a troubled engine had taught the company how much customers valued support, a lesson it carried into later engine programmes.

Second Lives

Retired 880s went on to stranger careers. Many were bought by American Jet Industries; one became a freighter in 1974 and flew until 1982, and another trained FAA flight examiners. A former TWA aircraft, N807AJ, sat at Mojave for 11 years, flew one last time in 1991 to Atlantic City, and served the FAA as a fire trainer until it was dismantled in late 2007.

United States Naval Aviation acquired one 880-M in 1980, after the FAA had used it for 18 years. Unofficially designated UC-880, it was modified as an in-flight tanker and worked at the Naval Air Test Center at Patuxent River, Maryland, on Tomahawk cruise missile testing and refuelling trials until it was damaged in a cargo-hold explosive decompression test in 1995.

The most famous survivor belongs to a singer. Elvis Presley bought former Delta 880 N8809E in 1975 and named it Lisa Marie after his daughter. It is displayed at Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee, and was bought back by Elvis Presley Enterprises after it was offered for sale in January 2015.

Other pieces survive too, including a cockpit at the Delta Flight Museum in Atlanta and forward fuselages at museums in New Jersey and Oregon. For an airliner built to win a race, it is a curious legacy: the 880 is best remembered as the jet that showed speed alone could not buy a market.

A visitor's walk-through of Elvis Presley's Convair 880 at Graceland.

The 880's fighter heritage lives on in a different way. The J79 family that gave it its speed also powered the F-104 Starfighter, a type that can still be flown today in the back seat from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Sources: Wikipedia (Convair 880), GE Aerospace, US Centennial of Flight Commission, San Diego Air and Space Museum Archives