Gg190 From United Kingdom, joined Jan 2005, 160 posts, RR: 0 Reply 4, posted (7 years 10 months 21 hours ago) and read 10826 times:
The Dassault Mercure only sold to one airline, Air Inter. I believe only 7 or 8 of them were built (that includes the prototype). So definately worse than the Concorde.
It lost out to the 737 because of it's very poor range, which also increased it's turnaround time. I think they stayed in service with Air Inter until the 90's
Philb From Ireland, joined May 1999, 2915 posts, RR: 14 Reply 5, posted (7 years 10 months 21 hours ago) and read 10758 times:
There were 12 Mercures built. Only 1 DC4E was built. The design was too big and was reduced in size to become the DC4. The Aviation Traders Accountant only made it to one prototype.
The Avro Canada C-102 jetliner was only built in prototype form as it did not sell and the CV-990 was deemed a failure at 38 airframes purchased.
Cornish From United Kingdom, joined Feb 2005, 8187 posts, RR: 56 Reply 6, posted (7 years 10 months 21 hours ago) and read 10751 times:
how about the VFW614 - sold very few (maybe 6 or so).
Quoting EDDM (Reply 2): According to the Airbus website, the A318 has been ordered 77 times. I don't know about the forecasts here, but that's not much.
no it isn't, but remember it is a derivative of the basic A320 family, whereas I think for this thread it is more about individual types of aircraft. Likwise the 737-600 has been a poor seller, but we can't of course think of the 737 as a failure.
The Mercure, VFW614, etc most definitely were failures.....
Just when I thought I could see light at the end of the tunnel, it was some B*****d with a torch bringing me more work
The Mercure had a very short range. Looks like 12 were built. 2 prototypes and 10 deliveries to Air-Inter. The joke is that the Mercure had such a short range so that it would never leave France.
Philb From Ireland, joined May 1999, 2915 posts, RR: 14 Reply 12, posted (7 years 10 months 21 hours ago) and read 10599 times:
19 VFW 614s built, 4 part built. DC5s, (from memory ) 6 built? - can't find the prod list at present.
737-100s are a sub type which were always meant as a first off run to fulfill an DLH spec and launch the type in a similar way to the B707-138 was a one off design for QANTAS.
If you mean the Spruce Goose, I doubt it was really intended to be sold to airlines. It was more a part of the ego-trip of Howard Hughes, but nonetheless an amazing plane.
Also, the 767-400ER has sold very badly. Only 37 built, and one on order for the USAF, though that is dependant on the tanker order.
H-4 Hercules, actually. It was never called the Spruce Goose.
Quoting DAL767400ER (Reply 18): It was more a part of the ego-trip of Howard Hughes,
No, it was a design requested by the U.S. War department for a super-transporter. And because of the War effort, materials were in short supply, Mr. Hughes was had to use wood to build the a/c. Thus a protracted development stage for the a/c, that and Hughes' last minute designing process.
Pretty amazing it ever flew, can you imagine designing and building something that big made primarily of wood, and then flying it!?!? No wonder Hughes hated the Spruce Goose nickname.
Pope From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 24, posted (7 years 10 months 19 hours ago) and read 10103 times:
Let's not forget the 767-400 and the 757-300
25 Positiverate: The MD-11 definitely was a poor performer in the market...
26 FlyPIJets: According to the utmost reliable Wikipedia 16 airworthy 144's were built. go here to read all about it I agree that to include any sub-type of the 73
27 Luke: The 747SP wasn't exactly a huge success with only 44 delivered - Boeing expected to deliver 214. But the fact that these aircraft are so rare makes th
28 Flyman33178: i have to agree with Positiverate. The MD-11 fell well short of market expectations due to range and fuel consumption issues.... although it has prove
29 Litz: Don't forget, the 764 was only made to replace L1011s for CO and DL ... the fact that other airlines wanted a few copies was only a bonus for Boeing;
30 Philb: PiedmontCowboy, thanks for saving me a trip to the loft!! The aircraft delivered to the Netherlands were in fact delivered to what is now Indonesia an
31 Kaitak744: Well, in terms of money loss, I would say the Lockheed L1011 Tristar. Sold only 200 out of the needed 400 to over come productions costs.
32 SA006: Were there any MD-8X failures such as the MD-88 and MD-90 maybe? -SA006
33 Philb: 249 L1011s sold, 250 built. A big disappointment but the RB-211 carbon fibre blade problems blighted the programme.. At one point it was thought the w
34 DH106: As discussed recently in another thread - the Breda Zapatta BZ-308 was an Italian design making it's first flight a few years after WW2. Looking super
35 Howard500: How about the little 717, it didn't claim too many victories either, no?
36 Litz: So what happened to L1011 #250, then? Or was that a never-to-fly prototype? 717 hasn't been a stellar seller, but compared to examples noted in the t
37 IRelayer: Actually the 717 sold pretty well considering that it was last in the line of an orphaned aircraft family. AirTran and Midwest seem to like theirs. -
38 Petertenthije: Only 4 F60s where bought, all by the RNLAF. Another was at the production line but never finished due to Fokker's bankruptcy. The VFW-614 was not very
39 Gg190: KLM received 4 DC-5's (their original order), 7 DC-5's went to the US navy. 1 aircraft was the prototype. Other great failures were the Bristol Braba
40 N328KF: Actually, the USAF tanker order (KC-767) would be based upon the 767-200. That could be as many as 100 units. However, USAF will order more 767-400ER
41 ConcordeBoy: Not entirely true. Only one was ever factory-built, yes.... but several A340-211s were later converted to A340-213X. Also, surprised no one has menti
42 IRelayer: I wouldn't consider it a failure, because it was a purpose-built freighter for carrying the Buran. It was bought and paid for in terms of development
43 BBJII: Modern Day airliner: The Avro RJX. MoU was signed with FlyBE, they built a few prototypes, tested them, then 2 days before mass production was due, th
44 PHLBOS: As with the 737 line; while the 764 sold poorly, it is still considered a derivative of the 767 line. The final 717 total will be 156 when production
45 N328KF: My prediction for a future failure: Bombardier C-Series
46 TradewindL1011: Actually, the -100 was the initial design that Boeing pitched, LH placed the largest order, but other airlines like AV and SQ also purchased several
47 Gr8SlvrFlt: Only three examples of the Martin 130, made famous as the China Clipper, were built. Martin was hoping Pan American would order their improved variant
48 TomFoolery: Rockwell international- Space shuttle- 6 built-5 used in space #1 Enterprise #2 Columbia #3 Discovery #4 Challenger #5 Atlantas #6 Endeavour
49 David L: While Boeing were concentrating on the 747, they seriously considered abandoning the 737 due to slow sales. I agree that the 100 is just a sub-type o
50 Visityyj: the 764 was only made to replace L1011s for CO and DL Anybody got a shot of a Continental L1011 ?
52 TheCheese: The Boeing Model 307 Stratoliner only saw 10 units produced. Convair abandoned the 880 and 990 in the early 1960s after US$245 million in development
53 N328KF: While everyone knows that you were giving a silly response, you forgot Pathfinder.
54 Newark777: Anybody got a shot of a Continental L1011 ? I assume he meant DL L1011 and CO DC-10s. Harry
55 FlyPIJets: Come on now, the thread clearly states "aircraft" those are spacecraft.
56 Glom: Ironic considering the most often stated statistics on this forum is that Boeing have sold more 737s than Airbus have sold aircraft. Oh look, there i
57 ConcordeBoy: Who here said anything about considering it a failure... the topic is worst performing sales; and ROI success or not, the aircraft does indeed have o
58 Psa53: Because of bad press about the DC-10,most of it unjustified, and bad timing,the MD-11 sealed Mcdonnell-Douglas fate.
59 PHLBOS: I don't recall AA ever ordering 764s to replace their DC-10s and/or MD-11s.
60 IRelayer: AA was one of the three proposed customers for the 764ER and had a heavy hand in the requirements, but they backed out and CO and DL ended up taking
62 FXMD11: I could think of the Dornier and Fairchild Family. None of their planes are really common, except the -228 may be. All others are hardly seen on scene
63 AirRyan: The plane was built for a specific need for a specific customer - I think the aircraft via Boeing engineers accomplished their mission and delivered
64 NW747-400: British Aerospace ATP? How many of those were built?
65 Philb: To clear up a few points: The 250th L1011 was the prototype which never flew in service and was broken up in 1986 at Ardmore. Re the B737-100. DLH was
67 Lightsaber: Sad... Analysts liked the plane. Now with the E-jets out, it would have a tough time entering the market. Ok, 195 airframes isn't the level of failur
68 Fumanchewd: I don't believe that it was the "worst performing" sales aircraft, but the De Havilland Comet 1 was certainly a disaster. Cutting edge for the short t
69 AirTran737: What about the 747-400ER? That one hasn't sold a lot of frames has it?
70 MrChips: If I'm not mistaken, the prototype DC-5 was purchased by one W.E. Boeing for use as a personal transport.
71 OzLAME: I think there were sixty ATPs built. There were many British a/c that did badly weren't there? Add the Handley-Page Herald (fifty built IIRC) and Her
72 N328KF: Consider that it had low development costs, and those costs were shared with the 747-400ERF, which has sold reasonably well.
73 Coronado: Who can talk to me about the Scandia--my first flight toward end of 1956 from Sao Paulo to Rio SDU. Not many of them made and sold!
74 Blue787: To the best of my knowledge I think only QF operates them so far.
75 FlySSC: Back to the Topic (already discussed 10000 times): The WORST performing sales ... not "bad" performing sales (L1011/Comet/767-400 etc...) I don't thin
76 Philb: Fewmanchewd, Your piece about the Comet is a totally fewmanchewed up distortion of history. When the Comet 1 first flew in 1949 - 5 years before the B
77 Jeffry747: Has anyone mentioned the Chinese 707 lookalike from back in the 60's or 70's? Saw a pic of it on A.net, but don't remember what it was called so I can
78 Philb: This was the Shanghai Y-10. See here for full details: http://psychcentral.com/psypsych/Shanghai_Y-10
79 Eilennaei: Re the volume of predicted or hoped-for sales vs the realised sales, must be the Concorde by far.
80 Paul777: FlySSC, I flew on a Mercure in August of 1976 from NCE-BIA, are you sure the year was 1979? Please tell me it is a typo, and I have not lost my memor
81 RayPettit: Has anyone mentioned the Sud-Est Armagnac? Like the Mercure, it had range problems, and in fact sold less than the '70s jet as only eight were built.
83 Paul777: Oh and yes my memory is going I forgot to add my input relevant to this topic. Since it does not say airliner , I think this aircraft is one that shou
84 Philb: All existing Starships that were still flyable were bought back by Beech and ferried to Marana where they are now stored.
85 FlySSC: Paul777, Sorry for that mistake. I didn't notice when I read my post ... The Mercure first flight was on May 28th 1971. First commercial flight with A
86 Paul777: Thanks Philb, I found a picture of some stored Starships, but did not want to include that in my post. I prefer to see aircraft flying than sitting o
87 Fumanchewd: Incorrect, I saw one in Arizona 4 months ago. I didn't catch the tail number but it was still flying.
88 OldAeroGuy: A measure of Airplane Program success needs to be airframes sold vs resources (money and manpower) invested. Using this criteria, I think the A310 bel
89 Fumanchewd: In the late 40's????? I understand that these were sold with only 3 years of design, an unprecedented and foolish idea in those times. http://www.geo
91 Fumanchewd: I believe it was. At the airport I work at we used to get 4 or 5 of them in at different times. (I specifically remember 515JS) Unfortunately I had no
92 Gg190: There were exactly 63 ATP's built and 2 Jetstream 61's built. All ATP's were sold, but the two J61's (which were just rebranded and slightly changed
93 Philb: Fewmanchewd, I'm sure you did see a Starship in Arizona four months ago. I understand the storage programme at Marana was only completed in early June
94 EMBPR: Regarding the FD 728 - even though it never flew, we had some 200 firm orders for the aircraft at the time of the comany's demise, so from a sales sta
95 Fumanchewd: You seem to know quite a bit about the comet, so I'll trust your info. I do think that the engineering was rushed though. Wasn't it pressurized more
96 Litz: Your eyes did not deceive you ... there is (at least) one Starship that is still flying; it's owner refused to sell the aircraft back to Beech. He ha
97 David L: You think Dassault intended to sell fewer Mercures than SUD/BAC intended to sell Concordes?
98 NA: Its no wonder that in the sixties and earlier there were more "flops". No wonder, the market was a lot smaller and the number of different types and m
99 Philb: Litz, How is he maintaining his permit to fly? Beech not only withdrew spares but also all engineering support. It will be interesting to see how long
100 DHLSAN: I had planned on getting into the aircraft industry, but my first prototype didn't go over too well. Must have been the name, The Kamikaze.
101 N328KF: You are both naive and blind. The 767-400 and 757-300 were derivatives of existing aircraft, and didn't have huge development costs. That means that
102 Philb: Fewmanchewed, I got interested in aviation in 1955 just at the time the fallout from the fatigue disasters was beginning to point to where the problem
103 Philb: Apologies for the spelling bloopers and typos in the above. Used the spell checker, it said it changed the bloopers but the unchanged version seems to
104 RobertNL070: Plenty more where those came from: Dornier Do X (1926) - with twelve (12!) Bristol Jupiter piston engines; Douglas DC-1 (1933) - we know where this ai
105 DFORCE1: I don't believe Bombardier has had any orders for its proposed new C-Series regional aircraft.
106 Eilennaei: Can't tell, but the Concorde was thought by the originators to become the prevailing jet set norm of worldwide air travel in the thousands, while "sl
107 Philb: Robert NL070 The Brabazon was not known as the Whispering Giant, that was the Britannia
108 Vfw614: Although 19 VFW614 were built, only very few were actually sold: 2 Cimber Air 2 TAT 3 Air Alsace (if memory serves) 3 German Air Force 1 DLR The rest
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