MD/DC out of buisneess due to ORD Crash?

[Diesel]

Watching the history channel last night it talked about the AA DC-10 crash in ORD.

It was pretty good but said that the DC-10 crash plus the subsequent grounding by the FAA is the prime reason the McDonald Douglas went out of buisness.

Thinking about writing a paper but is that the true reason they went out of buisness?

 

[hawkerjet]

Not necessarily true. At the time of the ORD crash Lockheed had their L1011 way ahead of the DC-10. Huge political pressure was exerted in California to accelerate the DC-10 into service to catch up with Lockheed. The ORD crash was the last straw. There were previous crashes of the DC-10 all with catostrophic results. ( one in Paris, I can't recall the other) After the ORD crash it was back to the drawing board, and they finally fixed the problems with the design (aft bulkheads, etc) and had huge success. One wonders why Lockheed couldn't capatalize, but there was a lot of political posturing to allow McDonnell Douglas to capture a large market share and Lockheed bow out of the civilian market and have great success in the military market.

 

[mar]

Economic recession of the 90s

In a nutshell, I'd blame the loss of defense contracts. The C17 was the last plane MD built...if I remember correctly.

 

[sstearns2]

Douglas started to fall apart when Douglas Jr. took over just before they started on the DC-9. A lot of the high level talent left. You can read a bit about it in 'Wide Body' which is the history of the 747, but talks about Douglas a bit.

Scott

 

[typhoonpilot]

McDonnell Douglas didn't go out of business, not even close. They were purchased by Boeing because they had/have a huge military and Space division that rakes in millions of dollars in profits. The commerical aircraft arm of the company floundered because they were unable to come up with new designs that matched the competition.

You could write a paper on the mis-management of the commercial aircraft division and the many mis-steps they made in trying to get both DC-10/MD-11 and MD-80 replacements off the gorund. They spent billions on pipe dream projects like the MD-12 and unducted fan version of the MD-80. They were unable to field an effective counter-measure to the B737NG or Airbus 320. The MD-90 was a commercial flop ( although I love the airplane from a pilot's perspective) and the MD-11 suffered from poor performance in the beginning, although it has become a great freighter.

Douglas/McDonnell Douglas built airplanes that pilot's like but weren't necessarily the most economiclly viable alternative in the market so they suffered in the sales.

You've heard of the F-15 and F-18 fighters though, right ? Those are McDonnell Douglas products. The C-17 Globemaster is as well. Not to mention lots of stuff you probably don't know about that is used in space or to launch things into space. That is the main reason that Boeing bought McDonnell Douglas. They couldn't care a lick about commercial airplanes so they just let the products die a slow death.

Some stories from the late 90s illustrate how Boeing let McDonnell Douglas Commercial die. Luffthansa Cargo wanted to place an order ( or firm up options ) for additional MD-11 freighters. Boeing was trying to launch/market the 767 and 747 freighters so they initially said no way, " we're shutting the line down at airplane X ", " no more after that ". It wasn't until Lufthansa threatened to never buy another Boeing again that they relented and made what Lufthansa cargo wanted. They cold have marketed and sold many more beyond that, but they chose not to.

Boeing didn't even market the 717 until we took it to the Paris Airshow in 1999. It was only then that the Boeing sales team thought, " hey, maybe we could try and sell some of these ". It was just a little too late as many airlines had already made fleet decisions in favor of Airbus. Had Boeing been interested in marketing the airplane when they first purchased McDonnell Douglas I believe they could have sold a few hundred more airframes.


Typhoonpilot

 

[DrProc]

Typhoonpilot is right, even Boeing makes much more selling military and space hardware than airliners. I think I heard it was about 3 or 4 times the revenue in military and space than airlines.

 

[GogglesPisano]

Heard a rumor that one of the models in the Boeing lobby/compamy store is the "Boeing DC-3." Any truth to this?

The MD-11 was not a success because it's launch was immediately followed by Gulf War I and a global recession. Also, the first few airlines that flew them couldn't get the advertised range. MD claimed it was due to their lack of fully utilizing tail fuel management.

Only around 200 were ever made.

 

[Spooky 1]

Heard a rumor that one of the models in the Boeing lobby/compamy store is the "Boeing DC-3." Any truth to this?

The MD-11 was not a success because it's launch was immediately followed by Gulf War I and a global recession. Also, the first few airlines that flew them couldn't get the advertised range. MD claimed it was due to their lack of fully utilizing tail fuel management.

Only around 200 were ever made.

Don't know where folks come up with this BS but the fact is after several PIP's (Product Improvement Packages) the MD11 met or exceeded it's original range and perfromance goals. The tail fuel managemnt issue was never an issue as it either worked or did not work and I can't recall when it did not work. I did some fairly extensive work on extending the range of the aircraft it it's maximum and at least in my airlines case they just were flying the aircraft on a route (KLAX/VHHH) that it was never designed for, PIP or not. There is no question that the MD11 needed a new wing design to maximise it's full potential, but the economics were not there when the aircraft was first conceived which is a shame as they might of had a better chance in the market place. I am no engineer, but apparently wing design can consume an enormus amount of money in aircraft design. So be it.

It's intersting that much of the enhanced perfromance of the B747-400 has come from the same McDonnell Douglas engineering team that worked on the MD11 drag reduction program.

 

[A Squared]

Heard a rumor that one of the models in the Boeing lobby/compamy store is the "Boeing DC-3." Any truth to this?

I don't now about that detail exactly, but it wouldn't surprise me at all. For a while, if you went to the Boeing website, *everything* was a "Boeing" airplane, including all the Douglas Commercial planes. I saw it myself and it was realy nauseating....it was a little like reading a Soviet history book. I think that somone realized how stupid it sounded and now thier website gives recognition to the Douglas roots, but for a time, they were pretending that Douglas had never existed.

 

[typhoonpilot]

I still have stickers that say "Boeing" MD-90 and "Boeing" MD-11. It's a good thing I was allowed to raid the sticker cabinet prior to the takeover so I've still got lots of the original McDonnell Douglas versions of the stickers.

Comments on this Spooky:

It was American Airlines that first announced that something wasn't right with the MD-11. Actually, the problem that now became evident occurred during the flight tests. It seemed like the aircraft could not meet the specifications that had been announced. In simple terms you can say that the aircraft burned too much fuel so that either range or the payload went down. And on routes like USA-Asia this is very serious, meaning that the airlines had to make a fuelstop on the American West Coast on the westbound flights. This was also particularly serious as Douglas heavily advertised the MD-11 for Asian airlines for use on routes to USA. A large number of Asian operators, such as Japan Airlines, Thai International Airways, Garuda Indonesia and China Airlines among many others selected the MD-11 in favour of the Boeing 777 and Airbus A340. Some operators, for examples Singapore Airlines, changed their plans due to the shortage in range. First they placed orders and options for 20 MD-11s, but then switched to the Airbus A340.

Further info on Singapore:

Singapore Airlines placed an order for the MD11 comprising of 5 firm + 15 options on 16/01/1990. The airline had hoped to use the MD11 on routes such as Singapore to Paris where a B747 was too large. However, after the problems with the aircrafts range and fuel burn came tolight, the MD11 order was cancelled and an order for Airbus A340's was placed instead.


TP