Twin Descender
Twin Descender Characters in Molly Moon Heroes/Heroines Molly Moon Molly Moon is a 11 year old orphan with pink blotchy legs, curly brown hair, a steady droning voice, large, hypnotic,, dark gre...
Twin Descender
The Boeing 737-300I Seeking to complete its family of quad-engined, long-range 707s and tri-engined, medium-range 727s with a twin-engined, short-range airliner, and capture some of the market already filled by the similarly-configured SE.210 Caravelle, BAC-111, and DC-9, Boeing had designed a low-wing aircraft which had deviated from these competing designs by using the same fuselage cross-section as its larger counterparts’, retaining their six-abreast coach seating and attaching its engines to the wing underside, obviating the need for the t-tail. That aircraft had been designated “737.” Intended for the same short-sector, high-frequency routes as these other twinjets, it employed a wing short enough to reduce drag, structure weight, and direct operating costs, yet long enough to house the fuel capacity required for its intended sector lengths. Because these had been envisioned as relatively short, high cruise speeds had been less pivotal to the design than those of its long-range models. Although the wing-attached engines had resulted in some degree of lift loss compared to the now-standard, aft, fuselage-mounted powerplant configuration of the other twins, Boeing had been able to counteract this tendency with both leading and trailing edge high-lift devices on the wing. Citing the design’s commonality with its other Boeing types, and conceding that its existing 727s had offered excess capacity, particularly on internal German routes, Lufthansa had become the launch customer for the 737 in its initial version as the 737-100 when it had placed an order for 21 on February 19, 1965. First flying in prototype form two years later, on April 9, and registered N73700, it had entered scheduled service on February 10, 1968, powered by two 14,000 thrust-pound Pratt and Whitney JT8D-7 engines and able to accommodate up to 103 single-class passengers. A slightly stretched version, the 737-200, had been launched with an order for 40 from United Airlines, and had first flown on August 8, 1967. The elongated version, with longer engine nacelles, had a maximum capacity of 130 and entered service the following year on April 28. Despite a meager production run of only 30 for the former, the latter, particularly in its later “Advanced” guise, had achieved an impressive 1,114 sales, having earned it the title of world’s “fasted selling” twinjet. In order to incorporate evolving technology, improve performance, and reduce operating costs, Boeing offered yet a third basic version, the type’s first significant upgrade and second passenger capacity increase. Integral to both had been the new-technology, high bypass ratio turbofan which had offered greater thrust, lower fuel consumption, and reduced noise, eliminating the need for a costly redesign of the existing wing and hence restricting the development program’s costs to the $250 million level. Unlike the narrower JT8D engine, however, the new turbofan featured a larger diameter and could no longer be directly attached to the wing underside, requiring, instead, attachment by means of a pylon, a configuration which left inadequate ground clearance without an equally costly main undercarriage strut lengthening and redesign. Only close cooperation between Boeing and CFM International, intended engine manufacturer, could result in a co-solution to the engineering obstacles. The engine itself, the CFM56, had first run in June of 1974 after a considerable development period and had first become airborne on a McDonnell-Douglas YC-15, later also doing so in France mounted to a Caravelle. Retrofitted to the Super DC-8 as the CFM56-2, at which time the aircraft had been redesignated the DC-8-70 series, it had produced 24,000 pounds of thrust. At reduced rating, as the CFM56-3, it had been targeted at the new 737 version. Relocating the ancillary equipment ordinarily installed in an engine’s top and bottom portions, CFM International had redimensioned it to one of oval shape with an almost flat underside, reducing its diameter and therefore increasing its ground clearance, while Boeing had pylon-mounted it at a slight angle in order to avoid wing underside and trailing edge heat and exhaust interference. The configuration, which had placed most of the turbofan ahead of the leading edge and had resulted in downwardly canted thrust efflux, had liberated previously unusable wing volume for increased fuel tankage, indirectly increasing the aircraft’s range. Coupled with a lengthened, repositioned nose gear strut, the arrangement had produced a 28-inch engine-to-ground clearance, which had been only two inches shorter than the 30 provided by the much narrower JT8D nacelle. In order to counter the additional weight exerted on approach speeds, a new leading edge slat, running between the engine pylon and the wing tip and featuring double the area of the precedent 737-200’s, increased the chord by four percent, permitting an approach speed which had been only five knots higher than that of the earlier version and raising its altitude capability by 4,000 feet. Program launch, on March 5, 1981, preceded actual first orders, by USAir and Southwest Airlines, by three weeks. The first roll-out, occurring three years later, on January 17, 1984, in Renton, Washington, of the prototype, which, for the second time, bore the N73700 registration originally assigned to the 737-100, initially took to the skies the following month, on February 24, attaining a 29,000-foot altitude and completing a successful two-hour, 56-minute maiden flight. FAA type certification, following a three-aircraft, 1,294-hour flight test program, had been attained on November 14 for an aircraft which had not only met new stringent noise level regulations, but had demonstrated greater performance and economy than calculated during its design phase. The third basic version of the 737 family, designated 737-300, featured a fail-safe aluminum fuselage with a nominal, 8.8-foot extension over that of the 737-200, comprised of 3.8 feet ahead of the wing and five feet along its trailing edge, and resulting in a 109.7-foot overall length and a modest, 19-passenger capacity increase. The cabin, incorporating larger, redesigned overhead storage compartments and revised lighting, standardly accommodates eight first class, two-two arranged seats at a 36-inch pitch and 120 economy class, three-three arranged seats at a 32-inch pitch. A maximum of 149, single-class, exit-limited passengers can alternatively be accommodated in a single-class configuration at a 32-inch seat pitch. Underfloor baggage, cargo, and mail holds are located forward and aft of the wing. Cockpit commonality with the earlier 737 versions had been deliberately retained in order to facilitate a common type rating. The aluminum alloy, two-spar wing, with a 94.9-foot span, features 11-inch tip extensions, a 4.4-percent leading edge extension and a lateral control spoiler panel outboard of the engines, and a new flap section and track fairing aft of them. Low-speed, high-lift devices include inboard, leading edge Krueger flaps; outboard, three-section, leading edge slats; and trailing edge, triple-slotted flaps. Three outboard, powered, overwing spoiler panels, of aluminum honeycomb, augment lateral control and act as inflight airbrakes and ground-based spoilers, while graphite composite ailerons provide roll control. Wing and fuselage center section tanks house 5,311 US gallons of fuel. A variable incidence tailplane, whose span is greater than that of the earlier 737-200, is activated by two electric motors, with manual standby reversion capability, while the vertical tail introduced a dorsal fin atop the fuselage in order to counteract engine loss-created asymmetric thrust conditions. All surfaces are hydraulically actuated and operate off of two independent systems. The equally, hydraulically retractable and extendible, dual-wheeled, tricycle undercarriage is devoid of wheel well doors on its main units, their wheels forming aerodynamic seals in the stored position. The design decreases weight and fosters simplicity of operation and ease of maintenance access. Power is provided by two thrust-reverser equipped CFM International CFM56-3C-1 turbofans, each rated at 20,000 pounds of thrust. The basic gross weight variant, at a 124,500-pound take off weight, features a 1,625-mile range, while the high gross weight option, at 138,500 pounds, produces a 2,260-mile range. II A representative round-trip flight, from New York/La Guardia to Chicago/O’Hare with United Airlines, illustrates the typical two-hour sectors for which the 737-300 had been designed. After some two hours of taxiing parallel to both the active (13-31) and the nonactive (4-22) runway at La Guardia Airport amid 50 other aircraft, most of which awaited westbound air traffic control clearances through the weather-obstacled Cleveland Center corridor, the United Airlines 737-300 followed a US Airways Express DHC-8-100 on to Runway 13, conducting its acceleration roll and rotating. Instructed to “contact departure,” Flight 695 maneuvered into a tight left bank over Flushing Bay and the East River, as the Throgs Neck and Whitestone Bridges, draped in white light necklaces, passed below and beyond the left wing. Given successive altitude clearances, from 5,000 through 9,000, 10,000, and 15,000 feet, the aircraft banked to a 320-degree heading, contacting New York Center on 132.6, and was cleared to its first VOR at a “climb and maintain” flight level of 230. After a 280-knot speed restriction, the 737 had been cleared to 36,000 feet and contacted Cleveland Center. A full orange moon, hovering above the left wing tip, faintly illuminated the thick cumulonimbus cloud deck below. Speed brakes permitted rapid, initial descent 70 miles from O’Hare International Airport. Plying the moon-illuminated, silver skies, the aircraft briefly raced across the fluffy cumulous tops before plunging into them at 10,000 feet. United 695 contacted Chicago Approach Control. The moon, periodically visible through the broken cloud deck, transformed the sky into a silver-and-black Halloween-scape on the other side of midnight. Instructed to “descend and maintain 6,000,” the 737 momentarily turned left to 200 degrees before almost immediately banking right to a heading of 220. Maintaining 4,000 feet to the ADAM VOR, United 695 intercepted the ILS to Runway 27L, subsequently contacting the Chicago tower and completing its undercarriage and flap extension sequencing. The orange geometric pattern of ground lights appeared through the mist as the aircraft commenced its flap and undercarriage sequencing. Applying partial power and maintaining a 135-knot approach speed, it passed over the blue-bordered taxiway patterns of the field and flared on to the runway during the wee hours of the morning. Pushed back from Gate C31 amid a glowing copper dusk the following day on the return sector, the United Airlines 737-300, operating as Flight 690, commenced a lengthy taxi roll to the pad just short of runways 22L and 27L, where air traffic control restrictions necessitated its engine shut down for 30 minutes, before being granted take off clearance on the former of the two runways. Contacting Chicago Departure Control and rolling into a tight left bank over the ground lights, the aircraft was instructed to “climb and maintain” 8,000 feet, cleared to its initial VOR. The orange, rectangular light geometries yielded to the black, referenceless surface of Lake Michigan. Angling from 10,800 to 13,000 feet, the 737 contacted Chicago Center on 126.47. Huge, moonlit cumulous mountains moved under the right wing as the aircraft was cleared to 35,000 feet. Contacting Cleveland Center on 133.07, the aircraft rode “light chop” and was instructed to reduce speed to Mach .74 “for spacing.” Contact with New York Center, on 128.57, subsequently followed. A published hold at the MILTON VOR, with a 0345 Zulu release time, had been canceled before reaching it, although the 737 reduced speed to minimize its then anticipated hold time upon reaching it. Now cleared to La Guardia via Milton 3, the aircraft, maintaining 280 knots, was instructed to cross the Mark intersection at flight level 190, and then “descend and maintain” 10,000 feet and reduce speed to 250 knots. Contacting New York Approach on 127.43, Flight 690 was given the altimeter of “29.64” and requested to maintain a heading of 120 degrees and “reduce speed to 180 knots.” Instructed “direct to Green and intercept the localizer,” the 737 was cleared for an ILS approach to Runway 4. The full moon, now visible through the thin, sheath-like clouds, assumed an apparitional profile. Handed off to the tower, the aircraft was advised of “wind 090 at 5.” Breaking free of the cloud cover, now with fully extended leading and trailing edge wing devices, it emerged above the ground lights of Jackson Heights, knifing through strong, slanting rain and rolling on its longitudinal axis as it counteracted winds. Cleared to land, it passed over the black, reflective Grand Central Parkway, flaring on to the wet runway surface with a bounce before its raised spoilers firmly implanted it groundward. III When Boeing had rolled out its last, intermittently designated “Classic” 737, a 737-400, inRenton, Washington, it had achieved an impressive production milestone of having built 1,113 737-300s, 486 longer-fuselage 737-400s, and 389 shorter-fuselage 737-500s. In 1991, it had reached a peak of 21 aircraft completed each month. When these production figures include the 30 “First Generation” 737-100s and 1,114 737-200s, the 3,132 aircraft collectively produced had qualified the short-range, low-capacity twinjet as the world’s best-selling commercial airliner. Usurped by the “Next Generation” 737-600, -700, -800, and -900, the basic design created to complete its family and compete with the then current twinjets, which had all since been removed from production, had achieved every goal its engineers had inceptionally set, as evidenced by the more than 6,000 airframes sold and the global coverage of their routes, which result in a take off or landing every few seconds, somewhere in the world, 24 hours per day. About the Author A graduate of Long Island University-C.W. Post Campus with a summa-cum-laude BA Degree in Comparative Languages and Journalism, I have subsequently earned the Continuing Community Education Teaching Certificate from the Nassau Association for Continuing Community Education (NACCE) at Molloy College, the Travel Career Development Certificate from the Institute of Certified Travel Agents (ICTA) at LIU, and the AAS Degree in Aerospace Technology at the State University of New York – College of Technology at Farmingdale. Having amassed almost three decades in the airline industry, I managed the New York-JFK and Washington-Dulles stations at Austrian Airlines, created the North American Station Training Program, served as an Aviation Advisor to Farmingdale State University of New York, and created and taught the Airline Management Certificate Program at the Long Island Educational Opportunity Center. A freelance author, I have written some 70 books of the short story, novel, nonfiction, essay, poetry, article, log, curriculum, training manual, and textbook genre in English, German, and Spanish, having principally focused on aviation and travel, and I have been published in book, magazine, newsletter, and electronic Web site form. I am a writer for Cole Palen’s Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome in New York. |
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The Boeing 717
I
Tracing its lineage to the DC-9, the MD-80, and the MD-90, the Boeing 717, which had inceptionally been designated the MD-95, had been the last purely-McDonnell-Douglas aircraft and the first and only to have been transferred to Boeing for continued production.
Conceived as an advanced, low-wing, 100-passenger airliner with two aft-mounted, high bypass ratio turbofans and a t-tail most closely based on the MD-90, its immediate predecessor, the design, intended for high-frequency, short- to medium-range routes, had nevertheless inherently incorporated the 40-year development history of its earlier-generation family. Having carried the three manufacturer names of Douglas, McDonnell-Douglas, and Boeing, the basic airframe had featured three wingspans; three powerplant cores—of the Pratt and Whitney JT8D, the International Aero Engine V2500, and the BMW Rolls Royce BR715; a vast range of thrust capabilities, from 12,000 to 25,000 pounds; four basic designations—of DC-9, MD-80, MD-90, and MD-95/717; passenger capacities varying between 90 and 180 in single-class arrangements; and eight fuselage lengths, as the DC-9-10, the DC-9-30, the DC-9-40, the DC-9-50, the MD-80, the MD-87, the MD-90, and the 717.
Intended as a next-generation DC-9-30 replacement, numerically the most popular DC-9 version with 662 having been sold, the originally-designated MD-95 features a 124-foot overall length, which is 1.7 feet shorter than that of the DC-9-40, permitting a 106-passenger complement in a four-abreast, two-two, first class cabin at a 36-inch seat pitch and a five-abreast, two-three, economy cabin at a 32-inch seat pitch. One hundred seventeen can alternatively be accommodated in a single-class, five-abreast configuration. Two underfloor holds facilitate baggage, cargo, and mail storage.
The state-of-the-art, two-person cockpit is equipped with six interchangeable liquid crystal display (LCD) units, an electronic instrument system (EIS), a dual flight management system (FMS), a control fault display system (CFDS), and an advanced Honeywell VIA 2000 computer, and is capable of category IIIA landings, with provision for lower-minimum IIIB operations.
Its all-metal, two-spar wing, like that of previous DC-9s, MD-80s, and MD-90s, features full-span, dual-position, five-section leading edge slats; two-section spoilers; three-section, double-slotted, trailing edge flaps; and manually-actuated, cable-connected ailerons differentially operated in flight for banking and roll control. The wings, with a 93.4-foot span, are sweptback 24 degrees for a maximum Mach 0.82 speed.
The t-tail, positioned well above the engines, eliminates engine thrust interference with its horizontal surfaces, whose elevators are cable-connected and manually operated, while the vertical stabilizer’s rudder is hydraulically-deflected with fly-by-wire trimming. The MD-95/717’s tail surfaces employ thicker skins than those of either the preceding MD-80 or MD-90.
Powered by two aft-mounted, BMW Rolls Royce BR715-A1-30 high bypass ratio turbofans, each rated at 18,500 pounds of thrust, the aircraft, completely free of engine installation on its wings, generates maximum wing lift for optimum performance. Based upon the single-core BR700, the BR715 features a two-stage, high-pressure turbine; a 58-inch fan chamber; single crystal turbine fan blades; the largest combined blade and disk (blisk) ever employed by a commercial powerplant; and is thrust-reverser equipped. The 19-foot-long, 6,155-pound engine, the third basic type to have powered the DC-9 family, had first run on April 28, 1997, almost attaining 26,000 pounds of thrust at this time. It is the MD-95’s sole powerplant.
The aircraft sits on a dual-wheeled, hydraulically actuated tricycle undercarriage.
Launch order for the initially-designated MD-95-30, comprised of 50 firm orders and 50 options, had been placed on October 19, 1995 by ValuJet, a DC-9 and MD-80 operator, and the prototype, a former Eastern Airlines DC-9-30 modified to MD-95 standard and registered N717XA, had been rolled out three years later, on June 10, 1998, first taking to the skies on September 2. The aircraft, reflecting Boeing’s prior-year acquisition of McDonnell-Douglas and its 7-dash-7 number scheme, had been redesignated “717,” nomenclature shared by Boeing’s own KC-135A Stratotanker, the military derivative of the 707.
The first production aircraft, registered N717XD, had first rolled out on January 23, 1999, and the type had received its joint FAA and JAA certification nine months later, on September 1, after a 2,000-hour flight test program entailing 1,900 individual sorties and five airframes.
The first aircraft, N942AT, had been delivered to newly branded AirTran Airways, hitherto a 737 operator, which ValuJet had intermittently acquired, on September 23, and had been inaugurated into service the following month on the Atlanta-Washington route.
The 717-200, the initial and only version, had been offered with both basic and high gross weight options. The former, at 110,000 pounds, features a 1,430-nautical mile range with a 24,609 US gallon fuel capacity, while the latter, at 121,000 pounds, features a 2,060-nautical mile range with a 29,500 US gallon fuel capacity, but reduces the underfloor space because of the additional tankage and requires the upgraded, 21,0000 thrust-pound BR715-C1-30 engine.
The aircraft’s maximum certified altitude is 37,000 feet.
II
A triangular, tri-sector flight with AirTran Airways, from New York/La Guardia to Akron, Ohio; Atlanta, Georgia; and back to New York, is indicative of the mission for which the 717 had been designed.
Following a brigade of Canadair and Embraer “mini-jets,” but mirrored by the long-fuselaged “big brother” American MD-82 and the identical, Atlanta-bound AirTran 717-200 immediately ahead of it, the 717, operating as Flight 202 and registered N926AT, crossed the arrivals runway, 4-22, before maneuvering on to the departure strip, Runway 13. Lightly loaded, with only some 20 passengers on board, the twin-engined, t-tailed aircraft lifted its main wheels off the concrete and trimmed itself into a steep, initial climb angle, tucking in its tricycle undercarriage in the 55-degree, spring-like air.
Surmounting the house geometries of Queens and closing the gap to the opaque, tracing paper-thin cloud film, Flight 202 banked left abreast of the Throgs Neck Bridge over the deep blue of Flushing Bay. Throttling back to climb power, it banked further left.
Manhattan Island, appearing beyond the left wing tip in miniature form and seeming to float between the Hudson and East Rivers, triumphantly projected its tall, needle-thin buildings to and through the low, ground-hovering mist like victorious bastions of man’s architectural war. Beyond the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, gateway to the Atlantic, the sun metamorphosed the water into a copper glass reflection.
Now assuming a shallow, barely perceptible ascent angle, the 717, the ultimate evolution of the DC-9, crossed the eastern fringes of the Allegheny Mountains, which appeared like black, charcoal-sketched waves 35,000 feet below.
Aided by the barely-raised, upper wing surface speed brake panels, the twin-engined aircraft initiated a shallow descent some 40 minutes later beneath dirty white and gray, January-indicative cloud strata toward the farm patterns of eastern Ohio, thudding through light chop.
The perpendicular runways of the Akron-Canton Airport moved into view ahead and to the left. Extending its leading edge slats, which produced significant drag, Flight 202 completed its undercarriage and trailing edge flap sequencing, arcing into a final, approach-course left bank. Skimming the bare, brown tree-bordered farm patches at drag-counteractive engine settings, the 717-200 flared beyond the runway’s threshold and sideslipped into abrupt, crosswind contact.
Taxiing past the circular, brick Akron-Canton Terminal, into which four United Express, US Airways Express, and Delta Connection ERJ-135s and CRJ-200s had been nosed, the aircraft, the largest on the ramp, starved its aft-mounted engines of fuel, which spooled down into silence, replaced by the ringing of the jetbridge extending toward the forward, left passenger door.
Pushed back from the gate at 1215, the AirTran 717, now operating nonstop to Atlanta as Flight 202, initiated its unobstructed taxi at the Akron-Canton regional airport and received immediate take off clearance on Runway 19. Disengaging itself from the ground, the aircraft, with a considerable passenger complement, retracted its undercarriage with a light thud and climbed out over Ohio’s patchwork quilt of farmland, which later yielded to soft hills. With altitude, these were altogether reduced to indistinguishable obscurity.
Emerging from white, encasing cloud over the green corrugated topography of West Virginia and Kentucky at 37,000 feet, the twin-engined, t-tailed jetliner paralleled the line of cottony nimbus which had tied itself together along the eastern seaboard.
The chocolate brown ridges of the Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina crested like solid waves which had petrified at their peaks and had failed to descend back into the sea.
The upper wing surface speed brakes induced the 717 into a rapid descent over Georgia toward swollen, white cumulous snow banks, its bullet nose boring through the engulfing obscurity like a penetrative missile. Banking on its longitudinal axis, it initiated a series of arrival aircraft spacing s-turns, lurched by the cloud-associated air upset, while throttle-jockeying resulted in a series of periodic airspeed oscillations: as the airspeed peeled off, the engines were significantly spooled up, followed by a frequency of velocity deterioration, before the process had been repeated.
The aircraft emerged from the cloud islands over Georgia’s green and brown ground blanket. The skyscrapers of Atlanta, although still in miniature form, loomed into view off the left wing.
Extending its tricycle undercarriage into the slipstream and increasing its wings’ upper surface camber and area to their maximums with full, trailing edge flap travel, the 717 made a final left bank toward Runway 28 in the pure-blue, 68-degree skies dotted with suspended fluffs of cotton candy. Paralleled, on the left, by a Delta 757-200 and an ASA CRJ-100 approaching Runways 27-Left and –Right, the t-tailed pure-jet crossed the threshold, spooling down its engines for a final time, which profiled it for a flare, and crouched onto the concrete with its main landing gear “hind legs,” which absorbed the contact with minimal protest.
The return flight, operating nonstop, had occurred later than evening.
An onslaught of light pinpoints, representing final approaches to Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport on that dark January evening, seemed to vie, in competitive speed, for Runways 27-Left and –Right, toward which the AirTran 717-200, operating as Flight 343 from Gate C-12 to New York-La Guardia, currently taxied. Turning on to the threshold of the right of the two parallel strips, it throttled into an engine-pinnacling acceleration roll and, seesawed into a nose-high angle by its horizontal stabilizers, generated sufficient lift to disengage itself from Georgia soil and plunge into engulfing, low-lying cloud.
Retracting its undercarriage, it shed itself of the obscurity. Thin, horizontal strata of mist rendered the orange ground lights an ethereal blur, a muted, only partially successful attempt to penetrate the veil from the "other side.”
Separating itself from civilization, the twin-jet settled into its autonomous, 35,000-foot plateau, from which it could view, but not touch, the world, in miniature, below. Threading itself up the East Coast, it overflew Greenville/Spartanburg, South Carolina; Greensboro, North Carolina; and Richmond, Virginia, represented by their respective ground light splotches, “spills” of iridescent paint which had been tossed on to earth’s black canvas without form or forethought.
Routed, according to its flight plan, east of Washington and Philadelphia, Flight 343, a self-contained, lighted world pursuing its invisible track in the January blackness, followed the coast of New Jersey.
Leading edge slat extensions, permitting airspeed to bleed off, occurred 40 miles from the airport. La Guardia approaches, to Runway 22, would take the aircraft to the north before it could turn final.
Momentarily caught in the black, referenceless void between Upper New York Bay and the late-night sky, the aircraft passed to the right of the tiny Statue of Liberty and the lighted, jewel-glittering sculptures of Manhattan Island, beyond which the perpendicular runway-patterned field of La Guardia rolled.
Following, in precision, the pattern of aircraft approach lights, the 717 banked left over the black reflective surface of Long Island Sound beyond the green light necklace-strung Throgs Neck and Whitestone Bridges.
Executing a long, final approach over the Connecticut coast at a 132-knot speed, the twin-jet unleashed its undercarriage, and extracted the last amount of lift obtainable from its swept-back wings with full trailing edge flap extensions, a contradictory maneuver which created as much drag as it did lift and could only be truly counteracted with increased engine power.
Bowing toward Flushing Bay with its nose, it passed over the pier supporting Runway 22’s threshold and flared into the headwind, re-snatching concrete with its main wheels and unleashing its spoilers and thrust reversers in a simultaneous explosion. An American 737-800, which had preceded its landing, had just turned on to the parallel taxiway.
III
On May 23, 2006, during a ceremony attended by thousands, Boeing had rolled out the last two 717s ordered by Midwest and AirTran Airways, marking the final deliveries of the design, the final McDonnell-Douglas commercial aircraft, and the closure of its historic Long Beach production facility.
Founded by Donald W. Douglas, the Douglas Aircraft Company had flown its first airplane, the “Cloudster,” in 1921, and had opened its Long Beach facilities in 1941, on the eve of World War II, when demand had eclipsed capacity at its existing Santa Monica and El Segundo, California, plants. The first Douglas Commercial design, the DC-1, had been constructed here and sold to Transcontinental and Western Air (TWA), becoming the forerunner of a long line of increasingly advanced piston airliners which had introduced the world to commercial flight.
Merging with the McDonnell Company in 1967, the Douglas Aircraft Company had been renamed McDonnell-Douglas, its products comprising the new corporation’s commercial division, and, 30 years later, when Boeing had acquired McDonnell-Douglas, it had become the Douglas Products Division. Ultimately, it had been designated the Long Beach Division of Boeing Commercial Airplanes.
During its more than 65-year history, the Long Beach factory had produced some 10,000 military aircraft during World War II and 15,000 airplanes of both military and commercial design overall, while more than 65,000 airframes had been produced by all of its locations.
Despite more efficient, cost-effective final assembly techniques devised by Boeing, the 717 had been unable to remain competitive, partly due to sales conflicts with its own 737-600. Nevertheless, the 156 717s produced, along with the 976 earlier-generation DC-9s, 1,191 MD-80s, and 114 MD-90s, had already provided almost half a century of rugged, reliable, and economical service throughout the world, and seemed likely to do so for many years to come.
About the Author
A graduate of Long Island University-C.W. Post Campus with a summa-cum-laude BA Degree in Comparative Languages and Journalism, I have subsequently earned the Continuing Community Education Teaching Certificate from the Nassau Association for Continuing Community Education (NACCE) at Molloy College, the Travel Career Development Certificate from the Institute of Certified Travel Agents (ICTA) at LIU, and the AAS Degree in Aerospace Technology at the State University of New York – College of Technology at Farmingdale. Having amassed almost three decades in the airline industry, I managed the New York-JFK and Washington-Dulles stations at Austrian Airlines, created the North American Station Training Program, served as an Aviation Advisor to Farmingdale State University of New York, and created and taught the Airline Management Certificate Program at the Long Island Educational Opportunity Center. A freelance author, I have written some 70 books of the short story, novel, nonfiction, essay, poetry, article, log, curriculum, training manual, and textbook genre in English, German, and Spanish, having principally focused on aviation and travel, and I have been published in book, magazine, newsletter, and electronic Web site form. I am a writer for Cole Palen’s Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome in New York.