Passenger DC-10s: A Look Back

Passenger DC-10s: A Look Back

Starting Friday, the last McDonnell Douglas DC-10 will start its farewell tour as the last passenger DC-10. Biman Bangladesh Airlines will fly to Birmingham, UK, by way of Kuwait and then offer scenic tours before it is finally ferried to a final “resting” location in the U.S.

AirlineReporter.com’s Bernie Leighton will be covering these events from Bangladesh and beyond, but before we tell the last chapter of this majestic aircraft’s life, we wanted to start at the beginning with this historical look at the DC-10.

The birth of the wide-body airliner as we know it today can be traced back to one event in the early 1960s: the U.S. Air Force’s request for proposals for the CX-HLS, the program that would ultimately become the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy. Lockheed won the CX-HLS competition, and as legend would have it, Boeing would strike gold when they converted their design into what we know today as the 747. However, that is not quite 100-percent true, and Boeing was not the only company to transfer design philosophies from the CX-HLS to the commercial market.

For the complete story by Kris Hull for AirlineReporter.com, click here.

Updated: February 20, 2014 — 10:09 AM
Air Age Media ©
WordPress Image Lightbox Plugin