Boeing Planes that Never Flew

Bigey said:
Cool find! Thanks!

Interesting that they wanted to create a 3 engine comparable a/c to the DC-10.
Click to expand...
It all has to do with the engine. And economics.
The market was small for the 3 engine wide body and probably at some point Boeing realized Lockheed and McDoug were killing each other with their DC-10 and L-1011. Neither company made much money on those airplanes and some articles said that the only way McDoug stimulated DC-10 sales was by doing away with the stretch -8, a decision they later rued as it became a great freighter. the 8-73 with the big engines could haul the freight.
As for other designs, Harry Stonecipher, once head of McDoug, stood before the press at Paris and said that were not McDoug in the commercial airplane business, it would GET into the business because there was room for innovative designs. One was the MD-12. Of course, it never got off paper like many other designs and proposals.
FWIW, the 757 began originally as the 727-300 and was going to use the JT8D-200 series engines. It was offered to United and American (IIRC) and both turned it down. It was not that much of an improvement.
This is the MD-12
md12.jpg


And this is the early proposal of the 757 with the t-tail showing its 727 heritage.

php59aKoy.jpeg
 
Orange Anchor said:
It all has to do with the engine. And economics.
The market was small for the 3 engine wide body and probably at some point Boeing realized Lockheed and McDoug were killing each other with their DC-10 and L-1011. Neither company made much money on those airplanes and some articles said that the only way McDoug stimulated DC-10 sales was by doing away with the stretch -8, a decision they later rued as it became a great freighter. the 8-73 with the big engines could haul the freight.
As for other designs, Harry Stonecipher, once head of McDoug, stood before the press at Paris and said that were not McDoug in the commercial airplane business, it would GET into the business because there was room for innovative designs. One was the MD-12. Of course, it never got off paper like many other designs and proposals.
FWIW, the 757 began originally as the 727-300 and was going to use the JT8D-200 series engines. It was offered to United and American (IIRC) and both turned it down. It was not that much of an improvement.
This is the MD-12
md12.jpg


And this is the early proposal of the 757 with the t-tail showing its 727 heritage.

php59aKoy.jpeg
Click to expand...

Awesome finds! I wish there was a museum with all of these!
 
Pilotforhire587 said:
Awesome finds! I wish there was a museum with all of these!
Click to expand...
Not really 'finds'. Just a bit of memory that comes from being around a while.
For example, Lockheed did study a twin engine wide-body, the L-1011-600 which was called the Bi-Star (don't go there)
dash600.jpg


And one of the more interesting ones, the "Ring Wing" by Lockheed
ringwing.jpg

I can't find a picture of it but Lockheed also studied a concept with a flat-bed fuselage. The airplane would then pull into a docking station and a crane would lift the pod (carrying pax or freight) and place a new pod on the flat bed. Wind tunnel studies showed the drag profile was 'acceptable' to carry some items like Army tanks open air on the flat bed.

And to make the fighter community happy, Lockheed listened to the complaints that its -104 had too little wing, that it wouldn't turn and the t-tail presented some significant problems. The Lancer never made it beyond a mock-up but in talking to a few Lockheed engineers some time ago, they ALL said there had been some airplanes that did fly yet never made it out of the 'black' world.
Lockheed-CL-1200-Lancer.jpg
 
jonnydwolf said:
It's interesting how Boeing now lists the DC-10 as one of its "out-of-production" planes:
Click to expand...
Just like the Lockheed F-16.
The uproar among aviation historians was that Boeing marketing had taken the mostly unknown Boeing 717 number (the KC-135) and applied it to the MD-95.
 
Orange Anchor said:
It all has to do with the engine. And economics.
The market was small for the 3 engine wide body and probably at some point Boeing realized Lockheed and McDoug were killing each other with their DC-10 and L-1011. Neither company made much money on those airplanes and some articles said that the only way McDoug stimulated DC-10 sales was by doing away with the stretch -8, a decision they later rued as it became a great freighter. the 8-73 with the big engines could haul the freight.
As for other designs, Harry Stonecipher, once head of McDoug, stood before the press at Paris and said that were not McDoug in the commercial airplane business, it would GET into the business because there was room for innovative designs. One was the MD-12. Of course, it never got off paper like many other designs and proposals.
FWIW, the 757 began originally as the 727-300 and was going to use the JT8D-200 series engines. It was offered to United and American (IIRC) and both turned it down. It was not that much of an improvement.
This is the MD-12
md12.jpg


And this is the early proposal of the 757 with the t-tail showing its 727 heritage.

php59aKoy.jpeg
Click to expand...

Awesome info! What would the advantage be of a t-tail on on a underwing-engine design?
 
Bigey said:
Awesome info! What would the advantage be of a t-tail on on a underwing-engine design?
Click to expand...
Apparently little as the t-tail was abandoned for the eventual 757. Most of the time the t-tail is used to get out of the disturbed air created by the wing and to get more pitch authority (said the English Lit major).
 
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