The fate of McDonnell Douglas?

[David Zhu]

Hey guys,

First post here, hopefully to many more

It always made me wonder what Boeing is doing about the MD line of planes.. since they merged with McDonnell Douglas, the last time they made a MD-80 was 1999, and MD-90 in 2000. DC10's stopped in the 1980s apparently...

I still see many MD's out there today, but what about in the future? Is boeing just going to forget about the twin rear body engined aircraft? Or are they going to do something about it? (the only aircraft similar made by boeing would be the B727, but thats long gone too)

Its quite sad that such a beautiful plane has not been in production.... what will happen to them?

 

[BoeingBoy]

For whatever reason - aerodynamics, engine airflow, wing structure/design, whatever - all or nearly all larger commercial aircraft have migrated to wing-mounted engines, which leads me to believe that there must be advantages to that design. The Douglass/McConnell Douglas line that stretched from the DC-9 to the MD95 (B717) kept certification easier by being variants of the original DC-9. Tupelov may still have something rear-engined for sale but I can't think of anyone else. Boeing has done some design studies of possible future aircraft with rear mounted engines, though typically mounted in instead of on the rear fuselage, but most of those are for high speed transports protruding engines would be a drawback.

Jim

 

[Veritas]

Tupelov may still have something rear-engined for sale but I can't think of anyone else.

Bombardier CRJ700 and CRJ900. Those are similar in size to the early DC9 versions.

 

[BoeingBoy]

Bombardier CRJ700 and CRJ900. Those are similar in size to the early DC9 versions.

Yes, RJ's have pretty much taken over the early DC-9 role in this country and have rear-mounted engines. Even Bombardier, like Embraer did with the E-Jets, is going to wing mounted engines with their larger C-Series.

Jim

 

[777 fixer]

Hey guys,

First post here, hopefully to many more

It always made me wonder what Boeing is doing about the MD line of planes.. since they merged with McDonnell Douglas, the last time they made a MD-80 was 1999, and MD-90 in 2000. DC10's stopped in the 1980s apparently...

I still see many MD's out there today, but what about in the future? Is boeing just going to forget about the twin rear body engined aircraft? Or are they going to do something about it? (the only aircraft similar made by boeing would be the B727, but thats long gone too)

Its quite sad that such a beautiful plane has not been in production.... what will happen to them?

What will happen to all the MD aircraft? The day will come when they are no longer flying passengers from point A to point B. I doubt you will see either Boeing or Airbus making an aircraft with tail mounted engines either. Those appear to be domain of regional jets.

MD is a text book case of what happens when a company rests on it's laurel's. They ignored the commercial line thinking they could get away with rehashed products. Yes they made a good product* but when your aircraft burns more fuel than the competition and you have big holes in your product line the end result is a foregone conclusion.

 

[David Zhu]

Ah, thanks everyone for the explanations

It's too bad they ended up down the drain.... I should go out to the airport and take some pictures of these machines before they are gone forever

And why do the regional jets have rear-mounted engines when they aren't as good? Is it because the wings are too small?

 

[BoeingBoy]

Primarily because the wings are too low to hang an engine under them. What little lift is lost because of the pylon on a wing mounted engine would be easily compensated for.

Jim