Boeing tagged posts

On final… a DC-10-10 approaches a runway somewhere in the world.

With photos from the collections of Shawn Byers, Scott Jankowski and Ken Kula.

McDonnell Douglas’s DC-10 airliner is pretty much extinct in commercial passenger service, although some freighter versions and a handful of military transport/refuellers still ply the skies around the world.

The first flight of a DC-10 occurred on August 29, 1970, almost fifty years before this article was written. The tri-motored jet was a successor to the four-engine DC-8, and originally was designed for medium range operation. Ultimately, a later version was made capable of intercontinental flight operations, and since it operated with three engines, it could span the oceans without many, if any restrictions...

It’s the Golden Anniversary of the First Flight of Boeing’s B-747!

The first flight of Boeing’s (and the world’s) first “Jumbo Jet” occurred on February 9, 1969. With a heritage which contained ideas from the U.S. Air Force’s Lockheed C-5 Galaxy (of which Boeing was a losing competitor), the B-747 model became the largest commercial airliner in service in the years from the 1970s through the mid-2000s earned the nickname “the Queen of the Skies” in many circles. With a range and capacity never seen before, the airliner opened a huge amount of new city pairs and became a supreme status symbol of many international airlines’ operations.

The first flight of Boeing’s (and the world’s) first “Jumbo Jet” occurred on February 9, 1969...

Boeing’s B-727 tri-jet prototype first flew on February 9, 1963.  Two major variants were built, the shorter fuselage version with an oval center/tail engine air intake came first. and was generally known as the B-727-100 series.

The -200 series had a longer fuselage and a circular air intake in front of the tail. Various versions of each model were ordered, a Combi included a fuselage side cargo door for loading containers and freight in the front part of the aircraft, while the rear part contained passenger seating. The B-727-200 Advanced version has different engines. All-freight versions were produced or modified too.

The rear tail entry/exit door, which was placed below the center engine, gained a certain amount of notoriety as the mode of exit for D. B...