2 Boeing designed and built the Dash 80 in secret.

The Dash-80 in original Boeing livery. It is called the “Dash 80.” Boeing had risked $16,000,000 in a private venture to build the Dash 80 in order to demonstrate its capabilities to potential civilian and military customers, while rivals Douglas and Lockheed were marketing their own un-built jet airliners. In 1972, the Dash 80 became part of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum collection. At the same time, Pan Am ordered 25 DC-8s. Although the Dash 80 was strictly a prototype, it was designed so that a production version (the 707) would have enough range capability to cross the North Atlantic (New York to London). Boeing salespeople directed their efforts to Pan American World Airways, Trans World Airlines and large European airlines. The race was on. After the launch of the De Havilland Comet, Boeing saw that the future of commercial air was not with piston-powered aircraft but, in fact, with jet engines. Photo: Boeing Dreamscape via Wikipedia What are the details? It soon became known as simply the Dash 80. Cutaway scale model of the Boeing 367-80 showing interior arrangement. On Oct. 14, Pan Am ordered 20 707s. It flew in 1954. Boeing got hard to work and, in 1950, designed a plane that would be known as Model 473-60C and pitched it to airlines.