The MD-80 started life as a longer, heavier DC-9. Wikipedia says the programme was launched in October 1977, with a stretched fuselage, an enlarged wing and Pratt & Whitney JT8D-200 engines. When the first one flew it was not yet called the MD-80. It was the DC-9 Super 80, and Simple Flying notes it was renamed later.

The date

Wikipedia gives the first flight as 18 October 1979 and says the first aircraft was the first Series 80, DC-9 line number 909. I wanted more than one page behind that, so I checked others.

Air International's June 1980 issue, scanned on the aviadejavu.ru archive, captions the first DC-9 Super 80 as entering flight testing on 18 October 1979 and gives its registration as N980DC. That is a contemporary magazine, written within eight months of the event. Aeropedia, 1000aircraftphotos.com and Simple Flying also give 18 October.

One site, Airport Technology, gives 25 October 1979 instead. I count it as the outlier, but I could not find a Boeing or Smithsonian page to settle it beyond doubt: Boeing's own history page returned an error when I tried it, and Boeing's image archive describes the first flight without a date.

Aeropedia says the flight was at Long Beach, California. I found that in no other source I could open, so treat the location as Aeropedia's claim. Boeing's image archive does say the MD-80 and MD-90 families were built on the same Long Beach assembly line.

Swissair and the first service

Swissair was the launch customer. Wikipedia says the FAA certified the Series 81 on 25 August 1980, Swissair took its first delivery on 13 September 1980, and the type entered service on 10 October 1980 on a Zurich to London Heathrow flight. Airways Magazine confirms the 13 September delivery and 10 October service date but does not name the route, so the Heathrow detail rests on Wikipedia alone.

A Swissair MD-81 at Heathrow is exactly the picture I would pair with that story. The Commons photographer, Simon Butler, labels one such photo as HB-INK on 29 July 1981. That label is his, and I have not been able to check it independently.

How many were built

Here the sources split again. Wikipedia, Airways Magazine and Simple Flying all give 1,191 MD-80s delivered before production ended in 1999. Boeing's image archive says 1,159 were built between 1979 and 1999. I would quote the first figure and say it is the commonly cited one, rather than treat it as exact.

Simple Flying says the nickname Mad Dog comes from the type's MD initials and its powerful take-off.

What it grew into

The Super 80 was the start of a family. Simple Flying says it was renamed the MD-80, and Wikipedia describes the MD-80 as the second generation of the DC-9 line, with the MD-90 following in 1995 according to Airways Magazine. Boeing took over production responsibility in August 1997, per the same article, and the last MD-80 was delivered in 1999.

The type is still being photographed in service. The CC0 picture I use with this story shows an MD-81 of Laser Airlines in Venezuela, dated January 2013 on Commons. I have not found a catch of one in my own radar library, so this story is told in photographs rather than screen recordings.

Which one did you fly?

The MD-80 is a type people remember by the airline they flew it with. Which one did you last fly it with? I would like to know.

Sources

  • Wikipedia, "McDonnell Douglas MD-80": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_MD-80
  • Air International, June 1980, via aviadejavu.ru: https://aviadejavu.ru/Site/Arts/Art7099.htm
  • Aeropedia, "McDonnell Douglas MD-80": https://aeropedia.com.au/content/mcdonnell-douglas-md-80/
  • 1000aircraftphotos.com, Super 80 prototype entry: https://1000aircraftphotos.com/Contributions/Visschedijk/6881.htm
  • Airways Magazine, "McDonnell Douglas MD-80 first flight": https://airwaysmag.com/new-post/mcdonnell-douglas-md-80-first-flight
  • Simple Flying, "The MD-80 - Everything You Need To Know": https://simpleflying.com/md-80/
  • Boeing Images, MD-80 listing BI225227: https://boeingimages-a.orangelogic.com/asset-management/2F3XC54XNVD
  • Airport Technology, "MD-80": https://www.airport-technology.com/projects/md-80/
  • Photos via Wikimedia Commons: Simon Butler (CC BY 2.0), Adrian Pingstone (public domain), Wilfredor (CC0)