Caravelle SE-210
Single-wing narrow-body passenger plane of French production, intended for short and medium flights. Based on the requirements of the French Civil Aviation Committee, for an airplane capable of carrying 55 to 65 passengers and 1.000 kg of cargo over distances of up to 2.000 km, the Southwest (Sud-Ouest) company won the competition with its H-210 project. The nose area and cockpit layout were taken under license from the British de Havilland Comet aircraft, while the rest of the aircraft was of original design. The prototype made its first flight on 27 May, 1955, named Caravelle, and the aircraft had a pair of Rolls Royce Avon Mk.522 engines. Thanks to the campaign and the flight characteristics of the two prototypes, which traveled all over Europe and North Africa, the first orders came already in 1956 from Air France and the following year from the Scandinavian carrier SAS.
The first commercial flight took place on May 6, 1959, when Air France flew from Paris to Istanbul, with stops in Rome and Athens. The first Air France plane was christened by Yvonne de Gaulle, the wife of French President Charles de Gaulle, with the name Lorraine. Thanks to good aerodynamics, the plane had a finesse of 1:20, so the pilots joked that it was a passenger glider, which was demonstrated on the flight from Paris to Dijon in 1959, when the plane, nicknamed Alsace, made most of the flight by gliding. Placing the engine in the tail of the plane reduced the noise level in the passenger cabin, which increased the comfort of flying. A total of 282 SE-210 planes were produced until 1972, and it was used in nearly 50 countries on all continents of the world.
The first Caravelle in the JAT fleet landed on January 21, 1963 at the Belgrade airport as the first jet passenger plane in our country. It soon replaced the Convair, which was the backbone of JAT's fleet at the time, and which it had far superior features to. It carried twice as many passengers (72) at twice the speed (800 km/h) over twice the distance (2.500 km) than the Convair. By 1976, when the last ones were withdrawn from the fleet, a total of eight Caravelles had passed through JAT. In addition to JAT, Inex-Adria Aviopromet also used one rented Caravelle, while one was also in Tito's presidential "white fleet". The Caravelle (YU-AHB, f.br. 135, ex F-WJAK) was included in the JAT fleet in February 1963 and was then given the personal name Bled. It was grounded in 1976, and the following year it was assigned to the Aeronautical Museum.
