Dassault Mercure - World's Least Successful Jet Airliner
One of my many YouTube subscriptions is to the Ruairidh MacVeigh channel where he posts wonderful historic videos with a transportation theme.
When this video (linked below) appeared, I immediately became curious about this familiar looking aircraft that I had never heard of. The resemblance to the Boeing 737 is explained very early in the video.
Development began by the French military aircraft firm Dassault Aviation around 1967. It was planned to be an alternative to the B-737-100 and fill the niche market of short haul flights of approximately 1,700 kilometres or less. It carried more passengers (around 150) and had a faster cruising speed than the B-737. Only French domestic carrier Air Inter ordered the aircraft with the first delivered in June 1974. It flew its original order of 10 (and one prototype was delivered in March 1985) for 20 years before retiring the fleet by May 1995.
Seems like a good idea, so why didn't it sell? Apparently the economics of the time and Boeing's development of the B-737-200 sealed its fate. It could not compete with the most successful commercial aircraft of all time.
I do find it quite ironic that although this first attempt to go head to head with Boeing failed, by the time Air Inter retired these aircraft, Airbus had began delivering its A3XX series of aircraft which have competed very successfully with Boeing ever since.
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