
How a Boeing Sales Flop Became the World's Hottest Secondhand Jetliner - jwegan
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-04/how-boeing-sales-flop-became-world-s-hottest-secondhand-jetliner
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sandworm101
The 717 is also one of the few large jets readily converted for gravel
runways, giving it a long future in northern operations.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravelkit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravelkit)

~~~
Turing_Machine
The upside is that the engines are up higher, making them less prone to ingest
gravel.

The downside (for northern operations) is that they're perfectly positioned to
ingest ice coming off the wings. I think there was at least one MD-80 crash
caused by that.

~~~
iso8859-1
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavian_Airlines_Flight_7...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavian_Airlines_Flight_751)

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kunai
The 717 is actually not an original Boeing or McDonnell Douglas design; it's a
refinement of a very old DC-9 airframe from the 60s massively upgraded with
modern avionics and modern systems. The DC-9s (and later, the MD-80/90s) were
very well-engineered aircraft, and the fact that their core airframe designs
are still in operation some five decades later is a testament to how sound
Douglas' original engineering and design methodology was.

~~~
redthrowaway
You'd have to think though that a frame built long before CAD and long before
you could stress test member components digitally would be much heavier for
the same strength (or weaker for the same weight) than a modern airframe which
could be min-maxed to high hell before a single sheet of aluminum was stamped.

~~~
meatysnapper
The Mig-25 was mostly build from steel. Steel!

Good engineering can be done without the aid of a computer.

~~~
jandrese
It was also built with the philosophy that it doesn't really matter what you
build the aircraft from as long as the engine is big enough. Of course this
hurt its fuel efficiency, but in some ways this was a good thing. The mission
it was designed for (intercepting supersonic bombers) doesn't require the
plane to loiter and the short range meant it would be difficult to defect
with.

~~~
speeder
Is a steel plane harder to shoot down than an aluminum plane?

Or it makes no difference because the fuselage has to be thin?

~~~
meatysnapper
They would have built it from titanium but at titanium welding hadn't been
figured out too well then. The Alfa sub hulls were done with plutonium rods if
I remember right!

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mjevans
As I /really/ don't want to search those terms in order to confirm it... I'm
just going to point out that it seems like meatysnapper is saying:

Alfa sub hulls were done (, welded using,) plutonium (welding) rods; according
to their memory. Not, as another reply speculates, made out of plutonium rods
(which sounds silly from all sorts of perspectives).

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russell
Back when I flew regularly the MD-80 and derivatives where my favorite planes
to fly because of 5 across rows with wider seats than the 6 abreast 737 which
is like flying in a cattle car. My least favorite for long haul trips was the
777. Twelve hours where the seat armrest would go up only part way was too
much. It made it very difficult to take advantage of adjacent vacant seats or
just cuddle with my wife.

~~~
thrownaway2424
Man, I HATE the MD-80 and the 717 and every other plane with body-mounted
engines. There's always a beat frequency between the two engines and that's ok
for the first couple hours but eventually it drives me crazy. Would be nice if
they could somehow lock the engine speed perfectly.

~~~
sshanky
This is also something I remember well. I thought they had some way of locking
them to the same speed.

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guard-of-terra
No wonder turkmenian airlines failed to respond. Those are the sort of guys
who have a form screenshot in place of ticket reservation form. An image.

~~~
jen729w
One of the few two-star airlines in the world!

[http://www.airlinequality.com/ratings/2-star-airline-
ratings...](http://www.airlinequality.com/ratings/2-star-airline-ratings/)

The only one-star is, unsurprisingly, North Korea's airline.

~~~
hga
Well, it's got plenty of company, including First World ... Ryanair, about
which I've heard little good, except of course the price (no at fault
accidents, but they're cutting it fine with fuel).

~~~
jen729w
I'll let you know on Monday - I'm flying with them for the first time, BRS-
DUB.

I live in Australia and people like to complain about the low-cost airlines
there but, really, until you've travelled on Europe's low-cost carriers you
haven't seen anything.

~~~
hga
So how was the experience?

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afterburner
"global demand has outstripped supply since Delta started assembling a large
and growing fleet in 2012, taking advantage of favorable rental terms and a
drop in jet-kerosene prices that makes older planes attractive.

“They’re kind of the market-maker,” said Robert Agnew, president and chief
executive officer of aviation consultant Morten Beyer & Agnew Inc. “If Delta
weren’t there, the airplane might be struggling.”"

That's the core of the story. It could have been some other model instead.
It'd be interesting to know what the circumstances were behind Delta picking
the 717.

~~~
raverbashing
It might have been a different model, but it is not obvious which one would it
be That one segment has some contenders: fokker 100, MD80 (big with AA), even
older 737 models in that seat range

But I guess Delta made that model work for them

~~~
ubernostrum
AA is in the process of retiring its MD-80s. Between their fleet of 737s, the
A320-family craft they got in the US Airways merger, and the A319s and A321s
they have on order, the Mad Dog's days are (thankfully) numbered.

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biggio
"The only one that’s sitting idle and not earmarked for another carrier is a
Turkmenistan Airlines plane in temporary storage" I don't get it. Why would
you park an airplane idle?

~~~
smackfu
It might make sense for a small airline to order a spare plane, just in case
it's needed at some point. Especially if that plane model matches their flight
profile really well, but also had a small production run so it would be
difficult to lease a replacement. And if Boing really wants to get sales of
the plane to make it look like a success, there might be a sweet price for
that extra plane.

And since plane age is measured in takeoff/landing cycles, a plane that is
sitting in storage isn't really aging.

~~~
phillc73
Aeroplane age is generally measured in total hours flown.

Turbine engine life is measure in a combination of cycles and operating hours.

A piston engine aeroplane has nothing measured in takeoff/landing cycles,
although it is good practice to record this information on the Maintenance
Release.

~~~
engi_nerd
There's no one measure for aircraft age. Flight hours, takeoff/landing cycles,
and pressurization cycles are all measures that tell you different things.

The program I work on tracks flight hours, engine operating hours, and
takeoffs/landings.

~~~
hga
Many of us might remember the miraculous Aloha Airlines Flight 243, a 737
bought new by the airline in 1969, which in 1988 after 35,496 flight hours,
but over 89,680 takeoff and landing cycles, lost 1/3 of its top fuselage and
one flight attendant (it did a lot of short flights between the islands see
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloha_Airlines_Flight_243](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloha_Airlines_Flight_243)).
Per the Conclusion of the Wikipedia article:

 _Under current FAA regulations for the Boeing 737 (line number 291 and prior)
established in the 2010s, this airframe would have had to be permanently
withdrawn from service after 34,000 flight cycles or 34,000 hours, whichever
came first (for production number 292 and higher, it was increased to 75,000
flight cycles and 100,000 hours). The nearly 90,000 flight cycles exceeded the
design limit of the 737-100 /200 under either construction model._

~~~
engi_nerd
Yes, this was the example in my mind, thank you for posting about it. Flight
hours weren't informative enough in the case of this aircraft because it spent
its time making short hops involving lots of pressurization cycles.

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hackuser
> ... and a drop in jet-kerosene prices that makes older planes attractive

Based on that one comment, said in passing, the cost of jet fuel has dropped
enough that airlines now are looking for less-efficient designs.

That seems dangerous. Is airline fuel subsidized like automotive fuel is? At
least, I doubt the airlines pay for the massive externality of climate change.

~~~
hollerith
I know gasoline is extremely cheap in some Middle-Eastern countries, but is
gasoline subsidized in the U.S.?

~~~
hackuser
> is gasoline subsidized in the U.S.?

That's a good question. My understanding always has been that it is,
especially in many indirect ways. For example, tax breaks and other government
benefits for the oil and gas industry, as well as for the automotive industry.
But I can't cite any off the top of my head.

One way it's indirectly subsidized, at extremely high cost, is the use of the
U.S. military to protect industry assets, especially in the Mideast where we
maintain a large, active military presence. As just part of the cost, the Iraq
war cost the U.S. over $1 trillion. I very much doubt we would have been
involved if there wasn't so much oil in and around Iraq. On the other hand,
every import or export business relies on the peace, stability, and secure sea
lanes provided by the U.S.'s foreign operations (military and diplomatic).

