Airmale From Botswana, joined Sep 2004, 368 posts, RR: 2 Posted (12 years 5 months 1 week 2 days 8 hours ago) and read 796 times:
why didnt MD come up with a twin engined wide body a/c like the 777, considering they had the design couldnt they have eliminated one engine and modified the design and turned the DC-10/MD-11 into just that and beat Boeing to it
Cfalk From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 1, posted (12 years 5 months 1 week 2 days 8 hours ago) and read 772 times:
That was going to be the MD-12, I believe. But they did not have the resources to fully develop it. Following the short-lived early success of the DC-10, the only plane they managed to sell large numbers of was the MD-80, a segment where margins are not huge (it had to compete with the 737, Fokker, and later, the A320). Boeing basically made the money to buy MD because they had a couple of products with excellent margins - the 747, 767, and to a lesser extent, the 757.
Margins on aircraft more or less increase faster than the size of the plane. The small commuter plane business is a bloodbath with a lot of competition and not that much money to be made. 100-150 seaters are a little better, but the real money is made on the wide-body jets.
Flashmeister From United States of America, joined Apr 2000, 2863 posts, RR: 7 Reply 2, posted (12 years 5 months 1 week 2 days 8 hours ago) and read 771 times:
After sinking so many development dollars into MD-11, I don't think they had the resources to do much else. Granted, there was the MD-95, but it was based on an existing design.
An all-new twin design ala 777 or A330 simply wasn't in the cards given their R&D budget.
SuperG From United States of America, joined Dec 1999, 58 posts, RR: 0 Reply 3, posted (12 years 5 months 1 week 2 days 7 hours ago) and read 755 times:
Douglas proposed a "DC-10 Twin" (would have been the DC-11) design in the early 70s. Swissair wanted to be the launch customer, but MD decided against it. In retrospect, a big mistake.
VirginFlyer From New Zealand, joined Sep 2000, 4502 posts, RR: 50 Reply 5, posted (12 years 5 months 1 week 2 days 5 hours ago) and read 728 times:
The MD-12 was originally going to be an MD-11 with a new wing and better engines. Then at some stage it went from trijet to twin jet. This is when it goes really funny: It then mutated into a double-decker 4-jet, not unlike the A3XX. MD were pushing it quite a lot in the early 90s, but like the 787X, nothing ever came of it.
"So powerful is the light of unity that it can illuminate the whole earth." - Bahá'u'lláh
Flashmeister From United States of America, joined Apr 2000, 2863 posts, RR: 7 Reply 6, posted (12 years 5 months 1 week 2 days 3 hours ago) and read 699 times:
From what I read, the later days in the MD Commercial Aircraft Group were nothing short of chaotic... especially after DL, AA, SQ, et al went after them for reneging on performance promises on the MD-11...
It's a good thing that Boeing acquired them - they'd be bankrupt otherwise...
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