which was done better by competitors...It was also a *very* fuel-thirsty aircraft, even by 1960s standards....
This post I've pasted from A.net will tell the general story:
Quoting rolypolyman (Thread starter):
Is there anything that might have made the convair 990 a candidate for re-engining with, say, CFM-56s around 1980, had it survived that long or had the CFM-56 come out sooner? I know that the airlines were eager to get rid of CV990s by 1970, but I'm not sure if low passenger capacity was the main issue or if it was mostly fuel consumption numbers.
Moreover, it seems that the plane might have been a candidate for stretching, too, which Douglas used successfully to solve the slowdown with its DC-8 order books in the mid-1960s. Did convair consider this? Even if they were financially strapped it might have been a way for them to break even on sales. A transpacific stretch-990 doing M.88 on the SFO-ANC-HND route would have posed clear marketing advantages, especially during the years before widebodies were put on those routes.
Sorry, Mr. Rolypoly, but the entire basis for the 990 was it was going to be faster than the 707 and DC-8. When the performance specs could not be met, there really was no reason for the airplane. It had a cabin that was basically the same width as the DC-9, MD-80 series, but it had four engines, and required three pilots. There were plenty of DC-8 and B-707's that could have been re-engined with the CFM-56 and were not, because it was not cost effective. The 990 should never have been built, as there was a very small market for the airplane. Of the 37 built, 25 were ordered by American, but they only took delivery of 20 airframes. When the order was placed for the convair 600 Skylark, C.R. Smith, AA's President, bought the airplane to operate it on a premium service coast to coast in a first class only configuration. This was before the introduction of the 707 and the widespread dual class airplanes. Suddenly, most people figured out that the premium of first class to sit in one section of the airplane vs another was not a value to them. As my dad said, some 50 years ago, the back of the airplane gets there at the same time as the front.
The 990 never achieved the range that was originally proposed by convair. The 2-3 seating narrow fuselage ended up making the airplane's economics a loser, compared to the B-720B which was faster and had been performance and range. By 1970, the 747 had come out and it was faster than the 990 was even projected to be, and within a few years, and the introduction of the DC-10 and L-1011, transcon, transatlantic, and transpacific passengers demanded wide body comfort.
With the decision to build the 727, the 720 and 880/990's lifespan in mainline service became very limited. The GE engines probably didn't help the convair Jets either, and I have no idea if there ever was a plan to hang JT-3D's or JT-4's from their pods. But the non fan 720 only sold 65 units, as did the 880. And once the 727-200 came along, even if the convair was still in production, it was finished, because the 727 held more people, cost less to operate, and had the same basic range.
The convair jets were comfortable, and enjoyable to travel in as a passenger. I only flew on a 990 once, from ORD to BOS, but I flew on many 880 flights including quite a few on Delta and TWA during 1973, just prior to the retirement of the aircraft the next year. Once fuel went up, they were uneconomical, but they did last with both carriers for 13 years of basically trouble free service, which at the time, was longer than most aircraft stayed around.
The 990, on the other hand, was a bastard airplane. American retired them before the Electra. There just was no niche for them. They were mostly used on flights from Chicago to both coasts, and NY to Dallas and west. But American made another equipment mistake when it ordered the BAC-111-400 instead of the DC-9. The 400 Astrojets didn't hang around long either, and most of them because corporate aircraft rather than being sold to 2nd tier carriers.
As far as stretching the fuselage, that would have had to been done in the early 60's. When General Dynamics decided to end 880 and 990 production after the sale of only 101 airplanes, they broke up the tooling and the production line. This allowed them to write off their loss on the entire project at one time. That loss, $475 Million, was the largest corporate loss in US history at the time. The 990 was as stretched 880. How much longer it could have been made with wing and landing gear changes, I have no idea, but a stretched version would not have held any more passengers than a DC-8-50 or B-707-300B/C, because of the narrower fuselage.
http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/4891705/?threadid=4891705&searchid=4891735&s=convair+880+sales#ID4891735
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