Dassault Mercure
The Mercure was a passenger aircraft by the French manufacturer Dassault Aviation. Planning began in the mid-60s and the first flight took place on 28 May 1971. The last machine was decommissioned in 1995.
Description
The Mercure was a joint project of Dassault Aviation with Fiat (Italy ), CASA ( Spain), ADAP (Belgium ), FW ( Switzerland ) and Canadair (Canada), thus the first aircraft truly international product. It could be as an indirect predecessor of the Airbus family designate. Apart from these partners contributed Dassault even 14% and the French government 45% of the development costs. The final assembly took place at Dassault in the specially -built factory new hangars at Istres, southern France instead. The overall design of the Mercure strongly reminiscent of the Boeing 737, which had its maiden flight in April 1967. In contrast to the B737, the Mercure had a 5 cm wider fuselage diameter and was slightly longer. The passenger capacity was higher with about 150. Nevertheless, primarily through the use and the same arrangement of two Pratt & Whitney JT8D -11 turbofan engines in both types, the visual appearance of the Mercure and the first B737 versions almost identical. Overall, only 10 machines and a prototype were built, all of which were delivered to Air Inter (also the prototype was rebuilt later at the request of Air Inter and used as a passenger aircraft ). More versions - especially one with significant higher range due to more fuel-efficient CFM -56 engines - were planned, but it was not even due to lack of interest of airlines to a new prototype. Even more so by the Concorde were built.
The reason for the lack of interest of the airlines was the one that Dassault customer needs abklärte not thorough enough. This happened because Dassault as a successful manufacturer of combat aircraft ( Mirage for example) had a strong military background. The error of the Dassault Mercure was that commercial aircraft - are not always refueled after each landing - unlike military. The engineers from Dassault, which created the requirement profile of Mercure during the late 1970s gave 1960er/frühen, later admitted that they had not considered this point. The Mercure was designed as a pure short-haul aircraft with only about 1,000 km range. A short time later increased by the use of more powerful Pratt & Whitney JT8D -15 engines, the maximum take-off mass, which allowed the carrying of more fuel. The range has increased by 1500 km, it was almost half as large as the range of the Boeing 737 In view of the fact that the Mercure had a greater maximum takeoff weight than the first 737 versions, flew a little faster and more passengers (135 -156 ) could carry, was to short range is not necessarily the decisive reason for the low success. Rather, the failed commercialization in the U.S. is mainly due to the fact that at this time the oil crisis and the unfavorable dollar exchange rate raised the prices of Mercure exports. So were the Douglas DC-9 and Boeing 737, which are designed for short and medium distances, but the more appropriate choice for the airlines, and the production had to be stopped in December 1975.
Air Inter, which began in the Mercure as the only carrier and was very satisfied with it, flew - exclusively on domestic routes - in 21 years more than 360,000 flight hours and 44 million passengers with this aircraft, which shone with not a single serious incident and a commitment of 98 %. 1995 Air Inter had retired the last machine of the type Mercure. This machine with the registration F- BTTB was the Technik Museum Speyer paid as an exhibit. More decommissioned by Air Inter copies are located in the Musée de l'air et de l' espace at Le Bourget airport near Paris (F- BTTD ) as well as on the grounds of the École supérieure des métiers de l' aéronautique in Mauguio in the near Montpellier (F- BTTE ).
Specifications
- Minimum (empty weight ): 274 kg / m²
- Maximum ( maximum takeoff weight ): 487 kg / m²
- Maximum (empty weight ): 0.44
- Minimum ( maximum takeoff weight ): 0.36