DC-8 Projects & Variants

Skybolt

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Just a question to whom may know it: does anyone happen to know which was the Douglas model number (D-something) assigned to what would later become the DC-8, and if there was only one or different during the design evolution? I've consulted all the major printed sources to no avail, and before resorting to browse through the magazines archive, I'll try a shorcut here... ;). I'm preparing a PPT presentation for a congress.
 
IIRC, the 'original' DC-8 was derived from the Mixmaster.


Skybolt said:
Just a question to whom may know it: does anyone happen to know which was the Douglas model number (D-something) assigned to what would later become the DC-8, and if there was only one or different during the design evolution? I've consulted all the major printed sources to no avail, and before resorting to browse through the magazines archive, I'll try a shorcut here... ;). I'm preparing a PPT presentation for a congress.
 
Ok, ::) so let's say the 4-J57-powered swept wing airplane that was tendered to the USAF as tanker and intended as a civilian transport, too... :p
 
4-J57-powered swept wing airplane that was tendered to the USAF as tanker and intended as a civilian transport, too

Douglas submited a contender to USAF jet tanker competition?. Exciting!. Unfortunately I can't help Skybolt. :(
 
Yep, bid were asked to Boeing, Lockheed, Douglas, Martin, Fairchild and Convair. At least Boeing (367-80), Lockheed and Douglas responded. Fairchild probably could have bidded the delta airliner project they were working on in that timeframe. I bet that Convair design was a forerunner of the 880/990 (model 60 ?). Have no idea of Martin's. There was a model 306, a twin-jet version of the 3-03 Martinliner, but I doubt it would qualify.
 
Yes, the model 306 (twin TG-180s) does seem too small for the role. A variation on the model 350 strategic bomber would appear be more probable.

On the other hand, does anyone have any info on Martin's model 333 or 343 cargo transports?

Or, stretching further, would a land-based derivative of the model 275 (P6M SeaMaster) make any sense? I notice that Martin didn't seem to assign model number 277.
 
Since the two transport are successive model numbers and devoted to USAF AND Army, I'll surmise that they are tactical transports, maybe STOL. The 350 was a supersonic and too late. And 277 probably went to non-aeronautical project. Land based Seamaster, ummm, improbable. Martin did have a proposed derivative of the Seamaster in the tanker role, but always sea-based. They had even a proposed passenger derivative of the Seamaster, sea-based.
 
The search for the Douglas modelnumber of the DC-8-10 jet (first model) is very frustrating.
No results produced by the Putnam an Bizon books about Douglas.
Nothing in Terry Waddingtons ,otherwise magnificient book about the DC-8
Noting in Air Pictorial and Flying Revies for 1954 and 1955.
Only hope :'Flight' for these years , but I have note the complete collection....
Maybe someone can contact Tery Waddington ;D
 
Ummm, I suspect that neither him has anything, otherwise he would have published it. Anyone has the e-mail address of Renè Francillon ?
 
I'm beaten in the end run.The winner is Sky...
Congratulations! :-* ahem.. :D
 
Hi All!

pre DC-8:
Douglas Model 1278, "familiarly know as the DC-8", 4 turbojet engine, 80 passenger, speed about
M=0.9, wing sweept 35 degrees.
 
Thanks Nugo, but which one ? 80 pax seems too low for the defintive DC-8. Could be the civilian version of the proposed tanker, which was sensibly smaller. Which is your source ?
 
Nice DC-8 article in the last Boeing Frontiers issue
http://www.boeing.com/news/frontiers/i_history.pdf
 
Okay, I read both links.

I just am wondering two things...
1.) So the reason they went with such obscenely large windows was because they wanted the plane to be like a penthouse in the sky?
2.) What does "detail engineering" mean exactly when it pertains to airplane design?


Kendra Lesnick
 
I seem to remember that the large windows were a heritage of old airliners, when not all the seats had a window. Boeing did differently on the 707, and in time their solution won.
 
Skybolt said:
I seem to remember that the large windows were a heritage of old airliners, when not all the seats had a window. Boeing did differently on the 707, and in time their solution won.

What's the point of doing that? Setting the plane up so that not everybody sitting in the window-seats gets a window?


Kendra Lesnick
 
I assume the bigger the window, the bigger the chance of pressurization issues or the thickness of the window material.





KJ_Lesnick said:
Skybolt said:
I seem to remember that the large windows were a heritage of old airliners, when not all the seats had a window. Boeing did differently on the 707, and in time their solution won.

What's the point of doing that? Setting the plane up so that not everybody sitting in the window-seats gets a window?


Kendra Lesnick
 
This is how it's explained from today's point of view

http://www.boeing.com/commercial/news/2005/q4/051215d_nr.html
"The 787 Dreamliner will provide passengers with a noticeably better flying experience and our windows are a big part of that improvement," said Mike Bair, vice president and general manager of the 787 program.

http://www.airspacemag.com/flight-today/dreamliner.html?c=y&page=2
Starting in 1999, with Gillette’s backing, Emery convened some 50 focus groups in several countries with the goal of finding out what people really wanted in an airliner. “We’d hear the usual things—‘I can’t find my seat,’ ‘I don’t have enough room for my legs,’ ‘I went to the bathroom on an airplane once and I never want to do it again,’ ” he says. “We listened to all that. But we were looking for things that people really couldn’t articulate.”
To draw people out, Emery’s team would take 10 or 15 into a room and tell them that they were in charge of designing the world’s first jetliner cabin. No limitations. Or they would sit them next to the blank wall of a cabin mockup, give them a Magic Marker, and ask them to draw an ideal window. “Their deeper values began to come out,” says Emery. “Some things we couldn’t use, of course, such as elaborate overhead delivery systems for food to get carts out of the aisles. But one big lesson was the concept people have that as one walks down a jetway you’re feeling cramped because there are no windows, then you go through the door of the airplane and everything seems to get smaller and smaller.”

The windows, thanks to the carbon fiber fuselage, are almost 19 inches tall and 11 inches wide—as opposed to 15 by 10-plus inches in the 777. The larger windows not only brighten the interior but give passengers in middle seats a better view outside. In an added trick, the windows are dimmed electronically. Move a controller, and the window darkens as if by magic.

Making the 787 mostly out of carbon fiber (the aircraft fuselage is essentially “baked” in giant forms) created opportunities to indulge in other design niceties not possible with traditional aluminum. Aluminum airplanes can certainly have larger windows. But bigger window cutouts put more strain on the airframe. Carbon fiber handles the strains better than aluminum, so engineers could show a little flair and splurge on bigger windows without shortening the life of the airframe.
 
And finally here KJ can find all the answers for her questions
http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/tech_ops/read.main/196818/
 
flateric said:
And finally here KJ can find all the answers for her questions
http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/tech_ops/read.main/196818/

Thank you for the link.
 
Hi Skybolt!

pre DC-8:
Douglas Model 1278, "familiarly know as the DC-8", 4 turbojet engine, 80 passenger, speed about
M=0.9, wing sweept 35 degrees.

source: Aviation Week, 1956.
Later I shall tell exact Vol.?, N ? and page
 
I guess Model 1278 was cooked up before they decided to go with a 30-degree 1/4-chord sweep-angle...

Kendra
 
Some closeups:
 

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:D
Yep, it was a normal trick, used even in promotional artist views.
The original 1953 DC-8 had a 35 degrees swept. See attached.
 

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Skybolt said:
:D
Yep, it was a normal trick, used even in promotional artist views.
The original 1953 DC-8 had a 35 degrees swept. See attached.

Why would they show a diagram with a 35-degree sweep as a "trick" instead of a 30-degree sweep? From what I remember the 30-degree set up worked just fine...


Kendra Lesnick
 
KJ, the trick I was referring is reducing by 25 per cent the dimensions of passenger in the model to make the cabin look roomier....
 
Skybolt said:
KJ, the trick I was referring is reducing by 25 per cent the dimensions of passenger in the model to make the cabin look roomier....

Okay, I understand now
 
Hi All!
 

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and

source: NGM,1953,Vol.CIV,N6( December)
 

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Hi,


the DC-8 original model and some developments.
 

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Skybolt said:
:D
Yep, it was a normal trick, used even in promotional artist views.
The original 1953 DC-8 had a 35 degrees swept. See attached.

Seeing this drawing reminds me that I saw a Douglas promotional video of this design.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34wgncbqBI4
 
In Air Pictorial 2/1956,


a strange option or considerable choice for Douglas DC-8 to be powered by six engines
instead off four engine,also a three different fuselage shapes,is that a weird Info ?.
 

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