So Long, Super 80

The McDonnell-Douglas MD-80 (née DC-9 Super 80) has been a fixture of skies around the world for almost 40 years. Some love it (very quiet at the front!) and some hate it (so loud at the rear!), but it’s undoubtedly more interesting than the ubiquitous 737s and A320s that now fill the skies. And as a former Long Beach resident, I wish I had been around to see the Douglas flight line next to Lakewood Boulevard populated with gleaming T-tails.

American Airlines was the largest operator of the type, and to commemorate this week’s retirement of their last Super 80s, I scanned and am posting the DC-9 Super 80 Configuration Guide from January 1981.

I bought this at the local estate sale of a long-time Douglas engineer/executive, and it’s in pristine condition. It’s a binder containing 89 pages of diagrams, technical specifications, and option lists. I think t’s a fascinating piece of history, and I hope you enjoy reading through it.

The PDF can be read at the Internet Archive, downloaded from there, or from this site.

One of the coolest pages is this cutaway view comparing the Super 80 to the DC-9-50. A higher-res file is linked below, and feel free to contact me if you want the full 600dpi scan of this page or any other.

So long Super 80, and while you still can, Fly DC Jets!