Recently Added: Boeing 720, Boeing 707-120 and Vickers Viscount
Two More New, In-House Made Aircraft Templates
I’ve added 3 new aircraft types to the JStream aircraft collection, all of them in-house made aircraft templates:
The Boeing 720, Boeing 707-120, and the Vickers Viscount are the 110th, 111th and 112th aircraft templates to join my collection of aircraft used across the JStream site. They are also the 22nd, 23rd and 24th in-house made templates to be drawn by me personally.
About the Boeing 720
The Boeing 720 is a narrow-body, medium range four-engine jet airliner manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes, a division of The Boeing Company. The Boeing 720 is a derivative of the predecessor Boeing 707 quadjet, with a reduced length of 8 feet 4 inches (2.54 m), a modified wing, and a lightened airframe. It was designed to provide for short to medium range flights from shorter runways. Production of the Boeing 720 ended in 1967 with 154 aircraft built. It was superseded in favor of the newer Boeing 737, and it was eventually retired in 2010.
This was my first attempt at drawing a Boeing aircraft template. I chose the type as my first Boeing drawing because I thought the engines on the 720 were very striking.
I drew the Boeing 720 from scratch using a couple of old Pan Am illustrations as a reference. I’ve rendered the aircraft in both bare metal and white. It will be featured in an upcoming article about SAETA Airlines, a fictional Ecuadorian airline dating from 1962 which will be loosely based on 3 real life but now-defunct Ecuadorian carriers (SAETA, TAME and SAN Ecuador).
About the Boeing 707-120
The Boeing 707-120 was the first production variant of the Boeing 707 series of aircraft. It had a longer, wider fuselage and a greater wingspan than the prototype aircraft it was based on, the Boeing 367-80 demonstrator. The 707-120 was designed for use on transcontinental routes; it typically required a refueling stop during flights across the North Atlantic. The 707-120 had a fairly short production lifespan, and was superseded by the Boeing 707-320, a stretch version of the 707-120 with a higher passenger capacity, longer range and better performing engines.
I wasn’t planning to draw up the Boeing 707-120, but once I completed work on the Boeing 720 (see above), I changed my mind and decided to give it a go. Although there are plenty of differences between the 707-120 and the 720/720B, there are only a few differences between the two aircraft visually speaking. The main differences visually are that the 707-120 have more passenger windows (53 vs 50), the nacelles encasing the engines are very slightly different, and the horizontal stabilizer’s mounting hardware on the 707-120 has a butterfly-like appearance that was prevalent on the 707 series but not on the 720. Other than that, they’re quite similar in appearance.
As with the Boeing 720 aircraft template drawing, I drew the Boeing 707-120 template from scratch using some old Pan Am illustrations as a reference. I’ve rendered the aircraft in both bare metal and white. I revised one of my previous fictional airline articles - the one for China Southwest Airlines, a fictional Chinese carrier originally posted back in May 2024 - to include the 707-120. It will likely reappear in some future article as well.
About the Vickers Viscount
The Vickers Viscount is a British-made four engine, medium-range turboprop airliner manufactured by Vickers-Armstrongs. It was built in response to a design requirement issued by the British government and entered service in 1953 as the first turboprop-powered airliner. The Viscount included several innovations including pressurization, reductions in vibration and noise, and panoramic windows. Production of the Viscount ended in 1963 after 445 aircraft were built, when jet airliners began to overtake turboprops. After a long tenure as a favorite refurbished aircraft that saw considerable usage in Africa, Asia and South America, the Viscount was eventually retired in 2009.
As I was researching the past fleets of various Ecuadorian airlines in preparation for my upcoming article about a fictional version of SAETA Airlines, the Vickers Viscount stood out to me as a aircraft type that saw plenty of use around South America during the mid to late 20th century. So instead of taking the easy way out and going with my previously drawn Douglas DC-6 (or using my adapted Douglas DC-4 that was originally drawn by Norebbo), I decided to draw the Viscount myself. I was especially drawn to the Viscount’s larger windows and especially by its hobbit-like entry doors, which are elliptical though not exactly circular.
I drew the Vickers Viscount 700 from scratch based on several photos I found around the web, most of which were taken during the 1950s when the Viscount was still being used by the British airline industry. I’ve rendered the Viscount in both bare metal and white. It will be featured in the same upcoming article about SAETA Airlines mentioned above in the Boeing 720B section of this page.
Below are embedded links to the relevant aircraft reference pages. You can also find them from my aircraft inventory page, which lists all aircraft depicted on this site.