Orvar Viking

Flightsim 2004 screenshot.

Orvar Viking, a DC-9-21 of SAS - Scandinavian Airlines, takes off from Oslo-Fornebu in the early 1970s.
Delivered as OY-KGE on January 22nd 1969, she served with SAS until November of 1995, when she was sold as N129NK to Valujet, where she entered service in January of 1996.  Withdrawn after only eight months of service, she was put into storage until she was leased as SX-BFS to Venus Airlines in July of 1997.  She was permanently withdrawn from service in 1999 and put into storage at San Antonio, where she was finally broken up for scrap in February of 2001.

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The Douglas/McDonnell Douglas DC-9 was a short-range, twin-engine, single-aisle airliner, which was first flown in 1965.  After a false start in the late 1950s with an aborted DC-9 design (essentially a smaller version of the DC-8), Douglas had first gone into a venture with Sud Aviation of France, with the prospect of producing a license-built version of the Caravelle twin-jet; but eventually Douglas went at it on its own, and started its design studies on the DC-9 in 1962.

At the time, the DC-9 was competing with Boeing's 727 design - a tri-jet airliner which had been built using major components of the company's larger 707 jet.  Douglas, meanwhile, decided to design the DC-9 from scratch, rather than to use components of its larger DC-8.  Essentially, while the company's DC-8 was intended to serve major airports on international routes, the DC-9 was meant for short flights between smaller, regional airports.  As such, the aircraft was given a range of design features making it more suited to short-field operations - tail-mounted engines, set high off the ground, so that they would be protected from foreign object ingestion; large flaps (partially due to the clear wing), which gave the aircraft additional take-off lift; but also such features as in-built airstairs, which meant the aircraft could operate from fields with a minimal of support equipment.

The design, testing and introduction of the DC-9 happened surprisingly quick compared to present-day projects: the first design studies were made in 1962; the first prototype flew in February of 1965; the first version of the  DC-9 was certified for commercial operations in November of 1965; and by December of 1965, the aircraft had made its first revenue flights for its first operator.

Already early on, Douglas envisaged numerous variants of the DC-9 to please its potential customers.  The original version - the DC-9-10, 137 constructed, was built in a number of sub-variants (DC-9-11, DC-9-12, DC-9-14 and DC-9-15), and intended to carry between 72 and 109 passengers.  The DC-9-20 variant was a limited variant - 10 built - only for SAS - Scandinavian Airline Services, with the DC-9-10's fuselage, but DC-9-30s wings.  The DC-9-30 was a stretched version, specifically designed to compete with Boeing's  727, and could carry up to 115 passengers.  It was built in a number of sub-variants - DC-9-31, -32, -33 and -34 - of which 662 were built.  The DC-9-40, of which 71 were built, had an even longer fuselage, capable of carrying 125 passengers.  Finally, the ultimate version, the DC-9-50, of which 96 were built, could seat up to 139 passengers.

Production of the DC-9 spanned from 1965 to 1982, by which time it already had been superceded by McDonnell Douglas' MD-80, in essence an improved and modernised DC-9, and which in turn would continue to evolve into the MD-90, MD-95 and ultimately the Boeing 717-200, after McDonnell Douglas' merger with Boeing in 1997.

Flight Simulator 2004/FS9 by and (c) Microsoft
McDonnell Douglas DC-9-21 by Historic Jetliners Group