Airliners

Two stages in the jetliners development marked the 1960s. The first was the adoption of the turbofan engine. The turbofan gains economy by having much of its thrust pass around the engine core rather than through it. The second stage was marked by the introduction of the wide-bodied, 400-seat Boeing 747 in 1969. This large, swift, and long-ranged aircraft created a transportation revolution. Whereas air travel had once been confined to the affluent, it now became a mass-market conveyance as airline ticket prices fell and airlines became more sophisticated in their pricing practices. As the total market grew, smaller jet and turboprop airliners were developed for shorter routes.

Boeing had already demonstrated its mastery of the technique of creating aircraft to meet new demands by creating first the three-engine T-tailed 727 in 1963, followed by a succession of aircraft (the 737 [1967], 757 [1982], 767 [1981], 777 [2003], and 787 [2007]) that were tailored to the needs of specific airlines and routes. (The 737, with more than 6,000 sales, is the most produced jet transport in history.) Each of these models was modified and improved over time to take advantage of technical developments, and, as a result, Boeing had an excellent portfolio of aircraft to offer airline companies.

During the period of Boeing’s expansion, Douglas ran into management problems, and while its DC-9 was a spectacular success, it could not match Boeing’s proliferation of designs. Douglas was acquired by McDonnell Aircraft Corporation in 1967, forming McDonnell Douglas Corporation, and the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 was created to meet an estimated market requirement for about 750 wide-bodied aircraft. Lockheed sought to enter the same market with its technologically more advanced L-1011 TriStar. McDonnell Douglas sold 446 DC-10s, while Lockheed sold 250 TriStars, with both companies losing massive amounts of money. McDonnell Douglas belatedly struggled on with the MD-11, an improved DC-10, while continuing the DC-9 as the MD-80 and MD-90 series. When Boeing acquired the firm in 1997, it applied the designation 717 to one version of the twin-engine jet.

In spite of the intense nature of the competition to build jet airliners, a new entrant appeared in the early 1970s following intense industrial and political negotiations. Airbus Industrie was co-owned by French, German, British, Spanish, Dutch, and Belgium companies and subcontracted many parts to still other countries. Established in December 1970 to build the Airbus A300 wide-bodied twin, the company was discounted at first as having little chance to compete. However, its aircraft were widely accepted, and a series of designs followed that established a family of aircraft that matched Boeing’s offerings—and, with the introduction of the A380 in 2005, threatened to exceed them. The Airbus family marched steadily forward in size, number, and utility until it consisted of no fewer than 14 different series of aircraft. Complaints from the United States that Airbus was being subsidized by the various European governments was countered by the charge that American manufacturers were in effect subsidized by their sale of aircraft to the U.S. military and by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) research.

As the jet engine matured, it moved successively to other segments of the airline market and then, as turboshafts and turboprops, respectively, into helicopters and business aircraft. The success of the Viscount turboprop airliner was emulated by a host of others. Relatively small airlines, using these planes for routes connecting smaller cities, became associated with the larger carriers and often adopted the same name. In the late 1990s, smaller jets with room for 50 to 90 passengers began to replace the turboprops. This trend was part of a dramatic makeover in the profile and operations of airlines, especially in North America.

Business aircraft

Among business aircraft, smaller jet engines, with good fuel-consumption characteristics, became available to power executive jets. The first to appear included the Lockheed JetStar of 1957, which was soon followed by the North American Sabreliner. These aircraft were eclipsed by the appearance in 1963 of the Learjet 23. This five-to-seven-passenger jet had a top speed of about 560 miles (900 km) per hour and a range of 1,830 miles (2,945 km). Favoured by celebrities, Learjet became almost a generic term for the many executive jets that followed. Powered by turbofans, these included excellent aircraft from France (Dassault), Israel (IAI), and the United Kingdom (De Havilland and Hawker Siddeley.)

Businesses had used aircraft since the early 1920s, and a substantial fleet of twin piston-engine executive aircraft existed when the executive jets arrived. Although companies were loath to admit it, most executive jets were initially purchased as a perquisite of the top management, usually for a chief executive officer who liked to fly and found the executive jet’s performance comparable to that of airliners. In time, however, it was realized that executive aircraft were tools in exactly the same way that factory machines or computers were tools, and they were subsequently purchased in far larger numbers on that basis. The top executive jets, including the Boeing Business Jet (a variation of the 737), the Bombardier Global Express, the Dassault Falcon 900, and the Gulfstream 500/550, featured intercontinental range and high subsonic speeds.