The beginning of the 717 can be traced to April 8, 1963, when the Douglas Aircraft Company launched the development of a new aircraft type, the DC-9. This aircraft was to be a short-range airliner intended to complement the much larger DC-8. The new design featured rear fuselage mounted engines, a T-tail, moderately swept wings and seating for up to 90 passengers. The design also provided for the ability to stretch the fuselage length and allow for greater capacity.

In less than two years from the project launch, the first DC-9 took to the air on its first flight on February 25, 1965. Later the same year Delta -- the first airline to order this aircraft -- took delivery of the first four airplanes and placed the DC-9 in service on December 8, 1965.

Midway (84-93)
Douglas DC-9-30 • Scale 1:200
DC-00903H-002

The first name change came in 1967 when Douglas Aircraft merged with McDonnell Aircraft, creating McDonnell Douglas. The aircraft became known as the McDonnell Douglas DC-9.

The DC-9 was produced from 1965 to 1979, in five basic versions created to meet the needs of various airlines during a period of industry growth. These were the Series 10, Series 20, Series 30, Series 40, and Series 50.

The DC-9 Series 30, which was actually the second version developed, featured a longer fuselage, more powerful engines, and an improved high-lift wing. This version became the best selling of all DC-9 variants.

In 1977, development began on a new version of the DC-9 that would have an even longer fuselage and more powerful engines than any of the previous DC-9s, increased wingspan, and other systems improvements. This version was originally designated the DC-9 Super 80, but McDonnell Douglas renamed it the MD-80.

The MD-80 family consisted of five versions produced over 20 years from 1979 to 1999: the MD-81, MD-82, MD-83, MD-87, and MD-88.

The MD-90 was launched in 1988 and entered commercial service with Delta in 1995. The MD-90 is the largest of the DC-9 family, having the longest fuselage and most powerful engines of all other variants.

The last member of the DC-9 family, the MD-95, was to be a 100-seat version designed for high-cycle, short-range regional airline operations. Although it was announced at the 1991 Paris Air Show, the program was not actually launched until October 1995, when ValueJet (now AirTran) placed orders for the aircraft.

McDonnell Douglas Demo
McDonnell Douglas MD-90 • Scale 1:200
DC-00903H-001

Then in 1997, while the MD-95 was still in development, McDonnell Douglas merged with Boeing, who decided to end production of the MD commercial airliners.

Boeing kept the MD-95 project, since they did not have an aircraft serving this market segment, and renamed the aircraft the Boeing 717. (This was the second use of the 717 designation by Boeing; it was originally assigned to the military variant of the 707 which was eventually designated the KD-135 instead.)

In 1999, AirTran Airways took delivery of the first 717, and closed the circle earlier this year with the last one. In seven years, a total of 156 of the 717 aircraft was produced.

The end of the 717 production also concludes 65 years of production in the Douglas Aircraft factory located in Long Beach, California. More than 15,000 airplanes have been produced in the Long Beach factory since it first opened in 1941.

McDonnell Douglas Demo
McDonnell Douglas MD-90 • Scale 1:200
DC-00903H-001

The DC-9s that are still in service maintain over a 99% reliability rate and remain among the most reliable aircraft in many fleets. The 717 follows this legacy with just as high a reliability rate and even lower maintenance costs.

Even though the 717 is no longer in production, the DC-9 family will continue to serve airlines and their customers for years to come.

Test Yourself . . .

EAA AirVenture Oshkosh Introduces
“Women Soar”

This year, AirVenture Oshkosh is introducing a special program called “Women Soar,” bringing together girls in grades 8-12, teachers, parents, and women who have achieved success in non-traditional careers.

Presented in cooperation with the FAA, the purpose of Women Soar is to engage girls in EAA education programs, introduce them to exciting career opportunities, highlight educational resources available to them, and promote the belief that the sky is not the limit – that it is possible to achieve success in aviation, science, engineering, technology and more.

EAA believes that careers in aviation hold great potential for any young person with the knowledge and motivation to succeed. Over the years, educators at EAA have developed numerous programs designed to build and preserve the environment in which innovation thrives and dreams grow, and where aspiring young people can begin building their future.

Women Soar aims to accomplish this and much more, specifically with young women, as they decide their future paths. Although the numbers have improved in recent years, the percentages of young women choosing aviation as careers are still relatively small. The 54th annual EAA fly-in convention is the perfect place to showcase the possibilities available to girls in aviation.

"We're targeting girls at an age where they are thinking about what they want to do with their lives and introducing to women in careers that many girls may never have considered," said Elissa Lines, EAA's Vice President of Development. "They may be attracted to aviation, the sciences or engineering, but never considered it as a lifelong pursuit. Women Soar will plant those seeds that may allow these girls to explore their own potential."

Women Soar is a two-day program, which includes breakout sessions devoted to particular areas in aviation and presentations from female mentors from the worlds of flight and industry. 

For years, AirVenture Oshkosh has provided a venue for young kids of any age to experience and explore the world of aviation. Their KidVenture campus offers a safe and fun hands-on environment where they get to build their own rockets and balsa planes, experience a variety of high-tech flight simulators; fly a control-line model; see, touch, and crawl around real airplanes and partially built airplane projects; and meet aviation legends and pioneers.

EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2006, billed as the World’s Greatest Aviation Celebration, is all set to take place July 24-30 at Wittman Regional Airport in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

Know Your Aviation Trivia

Second Quarter 2006 New Arrivals

Code sharing arrangements among airlines allow for more destinations, routes and schedules for the consumer.

Similarly, the new alliance between Flight Miniatures and InFlight 200 allows us to offer you more choices, not just between the premier quality and highly collectible metal die-cast models and the affordable plastic snap-fit line, but also over a broader selection of models and more aircraft types.

The Flight Miniatures plastic snap-fit models — for the price, quality, and range of selection — are a great value for the collector. Some collectors, however, may prefer to travel First Class rather than economy or business. Now they can, because the InFlight 200 models are undeniably First Class.

Additionally, the InFlight 200 models allow our collectors to get to more model destinations with the 707 and DC-8 models aircraft types. If you have not yet seen these models, we urge you to do so. You will appreciate the obvious quality and fine detail in these models.

These new InFlight 200 metal die-cast models arrived recently:

As for our plastic snap-fit model line, new arrivals have been scarce during the previous months as a result of several challenges we are facing with our model production. We anticipate a satisfactory resolution to these challenges soon, and look forward to making some exciting announcements regarding the Flight Miniatures model line by the end of the year.
 

Pilot Wear and DieCast Airplane

PilotWear began in 1998 with Steve's search of the internet for a T-shirt that said "Remove Before Flight." He couldn't find one so, like a true entrepreneur, he decided to design his own. The T-shirt sold well enough that he decided to expand the Pilot Wear web site into what it is today -- A quality source of Aviation T-shirts and gifts, with over 200 items available.

Steve started another site in 2003, Diecast Airplanes.com. This store specializes in selling a diverse selection of airplane models, offering a wide variety of makes and models, types and scales, and from a range of manufacturers from all over the world.

Steve and his businesses are a natural fit, as his affinity with aviation can be traced back through three generations of aviation enthusiasts in his family. His grandfather was an aircraft mechanic in WWI. His father is a retired corporate pilot with over 7000 hours. His sister is a private pilot.

Steve also has his private pilot rating. He says he'd like to fly more, but since it is a pretty expensive hobby, he plays with model airplanes instead.

Steve was an avid modeler in his youth. Now with two teenage boys in the house, he has returned to building and collecting model aircraft.

We don't need a crystal ball to foresee that Steve's family tree is bearing another generation of aviation enthusiasts!

What Time Is It Over There?
Or…Today is What Day?

In this day and age of intercontinental globetrotting and satellite communications, these are not uncommon questions. Imagine arriving and realizing that you have lost (or just as likely gained) a few hours or a day, and you have no idea where that time went (or came from). Imagine how much more confusing if you and your luggage were separated!

In the past, we used to tell time by the rising and setting of the sun, notwithstanding that the solar schedule is not the same year-round. The longest day of the year for the northern hemisphere is during the Summer solstice in June and the shortest during the Winter solstice in December. During the equinoxes in spring and autumn, the hours of daylight and night are the same.

In the higher latitudes, daylight savings create a wrinkle in time every summer. Moreover, in the highest latitudes, the sun may not show at all in winter and it may not set at all in summer!

Not surprising then that today we ignore the sun's lack of punctuality, trusting instead to our technology.
 

For each of us, the new day begins when our clock or watch passes the midnight hour. So that takes care that, or you would think so. Not so fast.

If you are familiar with Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days, then you know about Phileas Fogg who betted that he could travel around the world within 80 days. Traveling eastward, when he returned to London he discovered that he had gained a day, which allowed him to win the bet.

Even if you are a blasé world traveler, you should know that there is more to measuring time than the give-or-take-a-day phenomenon of circumnavigating the earth.

The jet age has made the world easier to traverse--around the world in two days or less, instead of eighty. Journalists predicate their live reports on the time difference between their now and the clock in our living room.

Understanding time differences and time zones has become an integral part of understanding our world.
 

For starters, when does a new day begin? Does the day begin past midnight local time? Does it begin past midnight along the zero meridian at Greenwich, England, and rest of the world moves toward or away from the new day? Or does it really begin along the 180° longitude meridian, and the rest of the world moves towards the new day?

While we are comfortable with our own local time, figuring out the time in other places on the globe can be confusing. To illustrate, let us freeze a moment in time.

At a few moments past midnight, just as California is starting a new week, the East Coast is three hours into Monday. Meantime, it is 8 a.m. in England, the citizens having finished breakfast and on their way to work. In India, it is 1 p.m., and workers are at lunch or getting back to work after their lunch break. How about those living in the Fiji Islands? Here it is 8 p.m.; dinner is over, and the day is winding down toward bedtime.

By the time Fiji clocks tick into Tuesday, most Californians are still asleep at 4 a.m. on Monday.
 

 
Image courtesy of Global Online Adventure
Learning Site, www.goals.com.

In fact, it is possible that when you leave Fiji for Los Angeles in a jet plane, you could land earlier than when you left. Travelling the other direction, you could be into tomorrow without having fully lived through today. Confused yet?
 

As early as the 13th century, and through the voyages of explorers like Ferdinand Magellan, Francis Drake and later European traders, confusion surrounded the bewildering "lost day," also known as the circumnavigator's paradox. Attempts to pin down a prime meridian, or the opposite meridian which would determine where the calendar date changed, were often accompanied by controversy and politics.

Finally, representatives from 25 nations met at the Washington Prime Meridian Conference of 1884. They established the 0° Prime Meridian as the Greenwich Meridian, which runs through Greenwich in England.
 

The Conference also established standard time based on 0 hours Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), also referred to as 0 hours Universal Time (or “oh UT”). Standard time zones would be relative to the Prime Meridian in hourly increments.

So, if we divide the globe into 24-hour time zones, each time zone would span 15° longitude. Local standard time would be Universal Time plus, or minus, the number of hours for each 15° increments of longitude meridians distance from the Prime Meridian. (See the Time Conversion Table below.)
 

The longitude of a place can be expressed in degrees or in time, as in: New York is 74° or 4 hr. 56 min. west of Greenwich, and the time zone is 5 hours before Greenwich, or GMT minus 5 hours. So far, everything is logical and mathematically solvable. 

However, the Conference of 1884 did not force the issue, proposing the adoption of a universal day “for all purposes for which it may be convenient, and which shall not interfere with the use of local or other standard time where desirable.” In other words, while international law agreed to the concept of a universal day, local governing bodies are nevertheless allowed to choose the time zone for their own locality.
 

Therefore, while you can easily tell the time of a place by its longitude, you cannot be sure that is the local time adopted by the country. Moreover, some places adopt the mid-hour instead of the hour. (See time zone map below.)

In 1917, the Anglo-French Conference on Time-Keeping at Sea recommended that all ships -- both military and civilian -- adopt hourly standard time zones on the high seas. Ships must adopt the standard time of a country if they are within its territorial waters, but must revert to international time zones as soon as they leave the territorial waters.
 

Once the Prime Meridian was determined, the opposite meridian -- 180° longitude -- would naturally be the International Date Line (IDL), where the date changes. Unsanctioned by any international organization or treaty, the IDL is an artificial and imaginary line drawn by mapmakers following the recommendations of the hydrographic departments of the British and United States Navy.
 

The International Date Line dividing today from tomorrow is not as straight a line as you would expect. Though it occurs through mainly open Pacific Ocean, it does zig and zag, circumventing island groups and land masses to avoid imposing two dates within the same vicinity.

The position of the IDL has changed several times. For example, until 1845, Philippines was on the Americas side of the Date Line, because most Europeans arrived there from the Spanish colonies in South America. After the colonies gained independence, most Europeans came by way of the Cape of Good Hope, and Philippines joined the rest of its Southeast Asian neighbors. Alaska, of course, was originally west of the Date Line, until the United States bought it from Russia in 1867 and moved the IDL to the Bering Strait.

As with the time zone issue, countries along the 180° meridian get to choose which side of the IDL they want to be on. Samoa used to be on the Asian/Australian side of the IDL. The King of Samoa decided to adopt the American day, and observed the event by celebrating the Fourth of July twice, in 1892.

Most recently, in 1995, the Kiribati Islands, which straddled the IDL, moved the line to the east so that the entire nation would be on the same side. Now Kiribati claims its Caroline Island was the first to see the first sunrise of the third millennium. The claim is also made by New Zealand, maintaining that Pitt Island in the Chatham Islands is the first populated land to see that first sunrise.

Here are the Flight Miniatures Top Ten Most Popular Aircraft Models during April through June, 2006. Note that the listing refers to only our plastic snap-fit model line.