McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30
The long-range DC-10 — Europe's favourite trijet · First flight 1972 · In service 1972
The DC-10-30 turned the domestic trijet into an intercontinental airliner. It got more powerful General Electric CF6-50 engines, larger fuel tanks, a wingspan stretched to 50.4 m and an extra two-wheel main gear leg under the centre fuselage to carry the higher weight — the easy way to spot a -30. Maximum take-off weight rose from 195 to 252 tonnes and the typical range to about 9,600 km.
KLM and Swissair took the first deliveries on 21 November 1972, and Swissair flew the first service on 15 December. The -30 was very popular with European flag carriers — Lufthansa, Alitalia, Iberia, SAS and UTA among them — and 163 were built for 38 customers between 1972 and 1988, making it the most common DC-10.
Six extended-range -30ERs, first delivered to Finnair in 1981, added a fuel tank in the rear hold and 54,000 lbf CF6-50C2B engines; five more -30s were converted later. FedEx launched the all-cargo -30F in 1984 (10 built), and the US Air Force's KC-10 tanker is a -30CF derivative. Biman Bangladesh Airlines flew the world's last scheduled DC-10 passenger service, Dhaka–Birmingham, on 20 February 2014.
