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The Jumbo Jet Era |
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JUMBO JETS Boeing 747
The Boeing 747, left is a four-engine airplane that can carry almost 500 passengers and fly nonstop more than 10,000 km (6,210 mi). The McDonnell Douglas DC-10, right has three engines and can carry as many passengers as most four-engine jets, but it is designed to fly shorter distances. (JUMBO JETS Boeing 747) The next frontier, pioneered in the late 1960s, was the age of the jumbo jet. Boeing, McDonnell Douglas, and Lockheed all produced wide-body airliners, sometimes called jumbo jets. Boeing developed and still builds the 747. McDonnell Douglas built a somewhat smaller, three-engine jet called the DC-10, produced later in an updated version known as the MD-11. Lockheed built the L-1011 Tristar, a trijet that competed with the DC-10. The L-1011 is no longer in production, and Lockheed-Martin no longer builds commercial airliners. (JUMBO JETS Boeing 747) In the 1980s McDonnell Douglas introduced the twin-engine MD-80 family, and Boeing brought online the narrow-body 757 and wide-body 767 twin jets. Airbus had developed the A300 wide-body twin during the 1970s. During the 1980s and 1990s Airbus expanded its family of aircraft by introducing the slightly smaller A310 twin jet and the narrow-body A320 twin, a unique, so-called fly-by-wire aircraft with sidestick controllers for the pilots rather than conventional control columns and wheels. Airbus also introduced the larger A330 twin and the A340, a four-engine airplane for longer routes, on which passenger loads are somewhat lighter. In 2000 the company launched production of the A380, a superjumbo jet that will seat 555 passengers on two decks, both of which extend the entire length of the fuselage. Scheduled to enter service in 2006, the jet will be the world’s largest passenger airliner. (JUMBO JETS Boeing 747) Boeing introduced the 777, a wide-body jumbo jet that can hold up to 400 passengers, in 1995. In 1997 Boeing acquired longtime rival McDonnell Douglas, and a year later the company announced its intention to halt production of the passenger workhorses MD-11, MD-80, and MD-90. The company ceded the superjumbo jet market to Airbus and instead focused its efforts on developing a midsize passenger airplane, called the Sonic Cruiser, that would travel at 95 percent of the speed of sound or faster, significantly reducing flight times on transcontinental and transoceanic trips. (JUMBO JETS Boeing 747) |
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