Mercure anyone flown or been in one

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Ruscoe
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Mercure anyone flown or been in one

Post by Ruscoe »

Every time I look at the Mercure I think how close it came to being successful, if only a bit more range had been designed into it.

Anyway just curious if anyone on the forum has been in one and what their impressions were?

How does it compare to a 320 with which it shares similar looks.

Ruscoe

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Post by Advisor »

Image

I have heard that only 10 Mercure 100s were ever built.
The assembly line was stopped on December 19, 1975.
Air Inter, France's domestic airline, placed an order for 10 Mercures on January 30, 1972. The first serially-mounted plane took off for its maiden flight on July 19, 1973, and Mercure aircraft earned certification from DGAC on October 12, 1974.

Ruscoe,
I finished studying for Mercure around a year back. Let me know if you need any specific information. I have in my research not come across anyone who flew it.
Aum Sweet Aum.

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sn26567
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Re: Mercure anyone flown or been in one

Post by sn26567 »

Ruscoe wrote:Every time I look at the Mercure I think how close it came to being successful, if only a bit more range had been designed into it.

Anyway just curious if anyone on the forum has been in one and what their impressions were?

How does it compare to a 320 with which it shares similar looks.
I was one of the happy few to fly the Dassault Mercure on an Air Inter domestic flight between Paris Orly and Lyon Bron (the airport that preceded Satolas, at a time that prededed the TGV). For what I can remember, the plane looked quite similar inside to the Boeing 737-200. A good comfort for that time, although I think that Air Inter already had the bad habit of installing hogh density seating (i.e. little legroom).

But this is all based an very old memories, so don't shoot the messenger.
André
ex Sabena #26567

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Ruscoe
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Mercure

Post by Ruscoe »

Thanks Advisor,

Can you tell me what the fuselage diameter was. Is it the same as the 320?

Thanks,

Ruscoe

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Post by Advisor »

Image

Intrestingly Mercure was close to the, then newly-developed 737-200, even though it was slightly longer and had a 5-centimeter wider cross section.

The aircraft was designed as a short range airliner.
Max payload range of only 400 miles! With 80% payload, the range is still only 900
miles!
I remember what was even worse, was the quest to reduce the structural weight, "The
objective was achieved by rigorously excluding all structural provision for supplementary fuel capacity"

The French government provided a loan for 56% of the development costs.
The loan was to be repaid from a levy on sales.
Since sales were so dismal, did the government write off the loan, like they did for
Airbus?
Dassault only covered 14% of the costs out of their own pocket.
The rest came from Fiat (10%), SABCA in Belgium, CASA in Spain and the Swiss
Federal Aircraft Factory.

You can visit the link http://airtransportbiz.free.fr/Aircraft/Mercure.html
or let me know if you still need new information. I shall have to scout for the pdf file of 30 pages that had been compiled by me in early Jan 04.
Aum Sweet Aum.

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Post by Advisor »

Some pictures i saw on the net can be viewed at
http://www.airliners.net/search/photo.s ... entry=true
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Skystef
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Post by Skystef »

There were on top of the 10 production machines two prototypes. The first one flew on May 28 1971, the second on September 7 1972. The latter was refurbished for operational use by Air Inter and was operated by them from March 1985 till 1995. So a total of eleven airframes saw operational life with Air Inter. Last service was provided by F-BTTD & F-BTTH on April 29 1995. Latest info says that about 9 Mercures are stored or displayed: eight in France and one in Germany (Speyer).

Rgrds S

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Post by Advisor »

Dear Ruscoe,

I hope you have also read our own luchtzak thread
https://www.aviation24.be/postt7873.html
Aum Sweet Aum.

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