DC-9 Data Plates

Fearless Tower

Fearless Tower

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Fearless Tower
Anyone know when they stopped putting Douglas Aircraft data plates on DC-9s? McDonnell merged with Douglas in ‘67, but continued to produce DC-9s until they started the MD-80 series in the 80s.

I’m curious if they still put Douglas data plates on the aircraft after the merger.

Saw an original data plate on an American Airlines jet the other day and was a little surprised as I thought Delta had been operating the last original DC-9s until they retired them a couple years ago.


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Midwest Express (dead) got FAA Approval to move them to the cockpit so passengers couldn’t read the date of manufacture.
 
Don't know about the airlines but Ameristar was still flying DC-9-10's a few years back. I would have thought all those would have been recycled into beer cans by now.
 
flyingron said:
Don't know about the airlines but Ameristar was still flying DC-9-10's a few years back. I would have thought all those would have been recycled into beer cans by now.
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Wow, I saw a -10 20 years ago and was surprised to see it still flying. I thought the data plate was in the L1 door frame.
 
flyingron said:
Don't know about the airlines but Ameristar was still flying DC-9-10's a few years back. I would have thought all those would have been recycled into beer cans by now.
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My dad, retired Continental Airlines, and I were driving around KADS and saw one. He said it looked like the -15F's that Continental bought new in the 60's. I pulled my phone out and googled the tail #, got the serial #, and it was an old Continental airplane. Good chance he flew it 50 years ago.
 
d.grimm said:
Midwest Express (dead) got FAA Approval to move them to the cockpit so passengers couldn’t read the date of manufacture.
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Lol, they should be more concerned with the pay and effort to lower the bar for pilots by the airlines. Ahh the drooling masses
 
d.grimm said:
Midwest Express (dead) got FAA Approval to move them to the cockpit so passengers couldn’t read the date of manufacture.
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I'm pretty sure American doesn't want anyone to know the age of the MD-83 I flew on a month ago (gotta be at least 20 years old).

If you saw it on an American plane it had to be an MD-82 or -83. They don't have DC-9s.
 
I've read that all the DC-9, MD-80, 717 use DC-9 on the data plate because they are all based on the original TC. Dunno how true it is.
 
Clark1961 said:
I've read that all the DC-9, MD-80, 717 use DC-9 on the data plate because they are all based on the original TC. Dunno how true it is.
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I believe the type rating listed on a pilot certificate also still says DC-9 for all of those planes.
 
So here’s another related question: do new Cessna 350/400s having Columbia or Cessna on the dataplates?


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Neither. Textron Aviation I believe.

Textron, which is a massive holding company which includes things like: Cessna, Bell Helicopter, Macaulay (actually just a division of Cessna), Lycoming, EZGO, Greenleaf, etc... careens back and forth as to whether they want everything to look like Textron Mega Corp keep the "goodwill" engendered by the old brands. I was never overly fond of the name of the company we had before (from a previous pre-Textron name change) but Textron insisted we couldn't change it because of the goodwill. I pointed out nobody knew the company name just the product name. I can't tell you how many times I'd been introduced as the Vice President of RemoteView.

Several years later they decided to change it to Textron Geospatial.

Textron itself is an odd name. The modern Textron is actually the outgrowth of Avco (you may remember Avco-Lycoming as a brand). They acquired a company that had started out in life as "Special Yarns Corporation" and indeed was a Textile company, but someone decided that Textron sounded pretty cooly modern and took that name for the merged company.
 
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d.grimm said:
Midwest Express (dead) got FAA Approval to move them to the cockpit so passengers couldn’t read the date of manufacture.
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Awww. I miss me some Midwest Express fresh baked cookies and comfy seats. They really did things right (from a passenger's point of view).
 
d.grimm said:
Midwest Express (dead) got FAA Approval to move them to the cockpit so passengers couldn’t read the date of manufacture.
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Got a reference or link for that? I just find that hard to believe as the regs are pretty specific on where the dataplate goes.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Anyone know when they stopped putting Douglas Aircraft data plates on DC-9s? McDonnell merged with Douglas in ‘67, but continued to produce DC-9s until they started the MD-80 series in the 80s.

I’m curious if they still put Douglas data plates on the aircraft after the merger.

Saw an original data plate on an American Airlines jet the other day and was a little surprised as I thought Delta had been operating the last original DC-9s until they retired them a couple years ago.


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AA has no DC9s, but the MD80/83/88/90 series were, IIRC, all under the same type certificate as the DC9
 
MD11Pilot said:
Who was the launch customer of the MD 80 in the US?
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That’s a good question. I know Bonanza Airlines was one of the first, but not sure they were THE first. One or two of the ex-Bonanza -9s was still flying when Delta acquires Northwest.
 
So, continuing the odyssey, today’s American MD-80 had a Boeing dataplate....
 
Fearless Tower said:
So, continuing the odyssey, today’s American MD-80 had a Boeing dataplate....
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There are many Israel Aircraft Incorporated aircraft with a Gulfstream data plate. Many were changed long after aircraft assembly via SB

Hawkers sport all kinds of them.
 
bnt83 said:
There are many Israel Aircraft Incorporated aircraft with a Gulfstream data plate.

Hawkers sport all kinds of them.
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So, serious question in light of how haphazard it appears.....who decides what data plate goes on the airplane?
 
Fearless Tower said:
So, serious question in light of how haphazard it appears.....who decides what data plate goes on the airplane?
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Type Certificate holder

That being said IAI I think has a licensing agreement with Gulfstream, the newer aircraft are badged Gulfstream G___ and in the fine print (manufactured by IAI)
 
Fearless Tower said:
So if the TC holder happens to have a whole crap-ton of dataplates from a older company, they can slap them on?
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TC holder can do pretty much anything. Textron now owns Hawkers, will there be a campaign to rebadge them? I'd guess not. But if you ordered a new dataplate for your 800XP it very well could say Textron on it.
 
One of the FAA reps I've talked to says the manufacturer should be identified on the dataplate and it should never change, even if the TC is bought by another company and new aircraft manufactured under new ownership. It would have a Brand name and (manufactured by_____) on it in theory
 
wsuffa said:
AA has no DC9s, but the MD80/83/88/90 series were, IIRC, all under the same type certificate as the DC9
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All the DC-9's, the MD-8x, MD-9x, and the 717 are all on the DC-9 (A6WE) type certificate. It's 80 pages long.

The MD-8x other are actually listed there as being DC-9-80 up until the MD-88.
 
bnt83 said:
Type Certificate holder

That being said IAI I think has a licensing agreement with Gulfstream, the newer aircraft are badged Gulfstream G___ and in the fine print (manufactured by IAI)
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I worked the books for the G-250, renamed the G-280 because 250 apparently is a bad number in some culture. All engineering and construction by and in Israel but marketed as a Gulfstream.
 
W
Fearless Tower said:
So if the TC holder happens to have a whole crap-ton of dataplates from a older company, they can slap them on?
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What? I've noticed a lot of insurance sales if aircraft do not include the data plate. I guess to prevent someone from building a plane from data plate up.
 
Paulie said:
W

What? I've noticed a lot of insurance sales if aircraft do not include the data plate. I guess to prevent someone from building a plane from data plate up.
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There are tons of ‘vintage’ airplanes flying today that have been built from the ‘data plate up’.
 
Fearless Tower said:
There are tons of ‘vintage’ airplanes flying today that have been built from the ‘data plate up’.
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Things have changed a lot over the years, the data plate could be considered worthless without a valid airworthiness certificate and records to go with it. I doubt you could buy, steal, find just any data plate and build a new ________(type certificated aka production aircraft) and get replacement airworthiness certificate today. The person signing the airworthiness certificate will want to see all the evidence mentioned earlier. That could include a letter from type certificate holder.

Its a huge responsibility and that person could be subject to international law and jailtime especially when it involves "import" of aircraft when being transfered to (or from) US registry to/from other countries.
 
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GlennAB1 said:
No, American Airlines. TWA got the last one built.
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Not true, I was at American as a mechanic and know the super 80 inside out. American leased them, we always had new ones cycling through while the old ones left. Not absolutely positive T way was first but were one of the first. American got them because MD was desperate and gave them a great deal, but they were leased. American was also very heavy on 727s. They were still flying -100s long after most airlines got rid of them. I worked on one that had 120,000 cycles.
 
GlennAB1 said:
No, American Airlines. TWA got the last one built.
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All the TWA ones (at least the ones left at the merger) ended up at AA anyway.

Fearless Tower said:
How is that possible if as several people have stated that AA never had a DC-9, only MDs
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All on the same data sheet. As I recall, MD released the DC-9-80 as a stretch, higher power version of the DC-9. It was branded as the "Super 80" the "Series 80". Swissair had a bunch of them. MD then made some cabin and cockpit improvements and rebranded the plane as "MD-81" (and as I recall, MD-83, MD-87, etc), but the "MD-80" name stuck. AA referred to them as "Super 80" for marketing purposes. And then added the MD-87 and MD-88, which as I recall did not include the "Super 80" branding. As I recall, some of the original MD-80/DC-9-80s were upgraded to some of the later version equipment.

So AA didn't operate the DC-9 as a branding thing, they operated either the Super 80 or MD-80 (or MD-88). Semantics. On the TC, they're the same as a version of the DC-9, up to the point that the later versions appeared.

Clear as mud?

Sorta like the DC-10/MD-10 and MD-11 confusion. The MD-10 is an upgraded version of the DC-10, but not as much as the MD-11.
 
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