I might be badly mistaken, but I thought it was 6 prior to the previous report time. Don't take my word for it, call the ALPA contract desk. It is part of what we pay them for. They WILL have the definitive answer.

And Boeing should be agressively counter suing each and every one of them for defamation and court costs. It would force the issue and I think populism would backfire on the victim industry in a big way and would destory the lawyer lobby in the court of public opinion. This is 10X more rediculous than the McDonalds hot coffee junk lawsuit (and yes I read the plantiff's "claims"...not impressed) and its high time airlines/manufacturers force this issue instead of automatically settling and guaranteeing more junk suits in the future.

Shhhh' they are assigning SC's. Don't break his concentration.

While things are slow and Bar is on the forum, I thought I might ask some questions about the DC9 and it's derivatives. I'm relatively new to the MD88 and I like it, but I have come to the realization that it will always be a challenging airplane to fly.

What's the deal with the wing? How is it that Douglas would build the same wing for 50 years with little improvement? I'm guessing that if Douglas were still around today, they would still be building the same wing that poops out once you get into the low 30's. It also seems like an airplane that is not stall friendly. Seems like if you were to stall it below 10,000' on a clean wing, you're as good as dead.

There must be some advantage to this wing though because the design was apparently bought by the Chinese a few years ago.

Is there a good book out there that chronicles the history of Douglas and the DC9?

Replies to this should be priceless^^^^^ :D

My insights into Douglas came from a number of friends who worked there in flight test. The Company's reluctance to spend money on engineering, only to spend a fortune on fixing the finished product can still be seen today in the 787 program (post merger with Douglas).

There is no advantage to the wing other than the tooling was already built. Douglas had hoped Chinese production would result in a huge MD8X/90 order from the Chinese, but that never happened. The Chinese kept the fuselage jigs and eventually had the Russians design a better wing for their ARJ-21.

The DC9 wing was OK for what it was designed to do, when it was designed to do it. Today it is a near textbook example of every error that could be made as it approaches trans sonic speeds. Mach airflow separation begins at about M 0.745. Drag increases exponentially beyond that point. Still amazing something designed for a 80,000 pound jet was being spun up to somewhere around 174,000 pounds during development of a MD90 successor.

Part of the MD11's problem was Douglas reluctance to design a new wing ....

Yes, but you can reach up and move the ailerons with your hand, so that's pretty cool. Try that on a 757.

Umm, not all of us can do that. I'm vertically challenged. :)
My shirt sucks too.


http://markosun.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/mini.jpg

Those are just replacement jets for Lion Air's current record order. They hope the jets will arrive quicker than they land them in the ocean.