iscover
French domestic carrier Air Inter retired the last of its 11 Dassault Mercures it had in service on April 29. The Mercure was designed in the early 1970s as a competitor to the Boeing 737, but only 12 were built, of which 11 were delivered to Air Inter. The Mercure was well engineered as an aircraft, but suffered poor payload range capability, thus greatly hampering its operational effectiveness and its sales appeal. Regardless, Air Inter's Mercures served the airline incident free for 21 years, carrying 44 million passengers on 440,000 flights. Pictured is a Mercure parked in retirement at Bordeaux in France, minus its two P&W JT8D engines. (Gerard Frawley)
Newsdesk – Commercial Aviation
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777 Variants Mooted
Boeing is looking at launching both longer and shorter fuselage versions of its 777 large capacity widebody twin, with launch of the former thought to be imminent as these words are written. Cathay Pacific is regarded as being a possible launch customer for the stretched 777 which would carry about 60 passengers more than the standard version, bringing capacity up to about 365 in a three class layout or up to 400 in a two class arrangement. This brings the aircraft into the Boeing 747-100/200 replacement market and its recent certification by the US Federal Aviation Administration for 180 minute ETOPS operations (only with Pratt & Whitney engines at the moment) emphasises that point. The 777 is the first airliner to be given ETOPS clearance before entering service, thus bypassing the usual ‘proven in service’ method. If a stretched 777 is launched now it could be in service as early as May 1998.
A ‘destretched’ lower capacity and longer range version of the 777 is also proposed. The ‘777-100X’ has its fuselage shortened by about 10 frames (5.3m/17ft 4in) but the aircraft retains the maximum weight and powerplants of the B market 777. The result is a simple trade of fuselage length (and structural weight) for fuel, enabling it to compete in the 7000 to 9000nm (13,000 to 16,700km) range market which takes in routes such as Dallas/Tokyo and Hong Kong/New York. The aircraft would seat typically 255 passengers in a three class arrangement. The 777-100X study was instigated mainly at the request of American Airlines but Qantas, Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines are also reported to be showing interest.
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