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Countdown to Retirement: American Airlines Super 80s
American Airlines readies the end of the Mad Dog era with the retirement of 20 MD-80s today. (airwaysmag.com) Más...Sort type: [Top] [Newest]
This type is a serious piece of aviation history. The climax of the DC-9 story came with the purchase of Douglas Aircraft by Mc Donnell, in order to "rescue" the company from >serious< accounting shortcomings. The first one hundred and something-teen DC-9s were sold for LESS than it actually cost to build them. Given that in that era commercial aircraft were expected to return enough profit to cover development costs sometime before aircraft #75, discovering this issue left Douglas in a serious hole. McDonnell on the other hand was about to deliver the 5000th F4 Phantom Two to the USAF, every one of which returned profit because Uncle Sam paid the development costs for the upgrade from the old Phantom Ones. My employment with McDonnell in those days was focused on insuring those pesky accounting issues never happened again. Our project, "Omega", was specified in the purchase contract with Douglas.
Loved your article on MD80. My father worked at M.D. in Long Beach, he worked interiors on the aircraft.
I always loved these beutiful planes. As I was young I remember seeing the Mad Dog take off and hear its loud sharp scream over my head. (Lived by an airport).
My favorite all time aircraft. I spent many hours in the jump seat in addition to hundreds of flights as a passenger.
Seeing how the airlines, are packing us in like sardines nowadays, there are lots of retired birds that need to be back on line!
Solid reliable AC in many ways, spent 20 years in left seat for AA. Amazing how they kept improving the plane over the years, the GFMS was user friendly but it is noe time to retire them to Roswell. ADIOS!