What Was The Convair 990 Coronado Jet And Why Did It Become A Failure?

Most of us only think of Boeing and Airbus when it comes to passenger jet manfacturers. However, several other companies tried their hand at building a jet airliner that would change how we traveled. In fact, the first passenger jet (which sadly turned into a massive failure) was built by British manufacturer De Havilland.Other companies like Sud Aviation, BAC, and Lockheed no longer build civilian jets or have vanished entirely. Convair built aircraft for the U.S. military, including the B-36 Peacemaker — a massive 10-engine bomber — and the supersonic B-58 Hustler strategic bomber.

The company also wanted a slice of the civilian market, so it introduced the Convair 880 and slightly longer 990 Coronado a year apart. However, these jets arrived after Boeing and Douglas started delivering their iconic jets. Convair went for speed first, and the 990 could go as fast as Mach .85. Passenger capacity was limited to 149 people, though. That was less than the 990's competitors, and the plane failed to deliver on the manufacturer's promised cross-country flight times. In the end, a flawed design and inescapable economic realities doomed the 990 Coronado.

Convair wanted its planes to stand out from others on the market, so it focused on making faster jets. To achieve this, it needed to make its planes smaller and lighter than the competition. The Convair 880 made its first flight for Delta in 1960. When American Airlines went looking for an even faster jet (a challenge Boeing turned down), Convair decided to jump at the opportunity and build an improved version of the existing 880. The airline wanted to fly the New York to Los Angeles route some 45 minutes quicker than the competition, so Convair proposed the 990 Coronado, which it said could hit Mach 0.83 (about 635 mph).

Although the Convair 990 had some trouble reaching its target speed at first, it eventually exceeded that mark, hitting a cruising speed of Mach 0.84 (645 mph). This was considerably faster than the maximum cruise speed of both the 707 and the DC-8 at that time. The 707 could hit Mach 0.80 (about 620 mph), and the DC-8 was a little faster at Mach 0.82(629 mph). That made the 990 Coronado one of the fastest passenger jets of its time, and it was only overshadowed when the Concorde arrived.

While Convair built one of the fastest airliners of its time, Boeing and Douglas beat it to market by about a couple of years. The 707 and DC-8 started commercial service in 1958 and 1959, respectively. The Convair 880 only arrived in 1960, while the Convair 990 Coronado came a year after that. This meant that many major airlines already had a fleet of passenger jets, and they were unlikely to purchase new ones from a smaller manufacturer.

Even though Convair's products were faster than the competition, things didn't really work out for the company. The bets Convair made on airlines loving a faster jet and passengers being willing to pay a premium came up short. Convair continued selling the planes for a couple of years before Convair's parent company General Dynamics shut down the production line, but the short production run represents a substantial misstep by Convair. However, it would take the failure of the supersonic Concorde jet for us to discover that most passengers would choose cheaper fares over shorter flights.

The Convair 990 was indeed the fastest jet of its time. However, that speed had some tradeoffs — it only had a maximum seating capacity of 121 seats, and its maximum take-off weight (MTOW) was limited to 244,200 lbs. On the other hand, the Boeing 707 could seat between 174 and 195 passengers, and its MTOW varied between 257,340 and 333,600 lbs. The DC-8 family had even larger variants, with the DC-8-73 able to seat 259 passengers and boasting an MTOW of 355,000 lbs.

While the Convair 990 was indeed faster than the competition, the time savings for a cross-country flight was still less than an hour. The Convair 990 also burned a lot of fuel; its consumption was 6.24 tons of fuel per hour at Mach 0.85. By comparison, a modern Boeing 737 MAX 8 flying at Mach 0.78 only burns through 2.02 tons of fuel per hour. To compensate for fewer available seats and a higher fuel cost, airlines had to charge passengers more to fly on the Convair 990.

The 1970s saw two major fuel crises. The first was a result of the oil embargo that Arab countries placed on the U.S. in 1973 for its support of Israel during the Yom Kippur War, and the second came in 1979 when the Iranian Revolution caused a drop in that country's oil production and doubled the price of a barrel of crude oil in about a year. These price disruptions cut off the supply of cheap fuel that many airlines relied on, so they needed more efficient aircraft to maintain profitability. 

Airlines also needed to maximize the number of passengers they put in their aircraft, so fast, luxurious flying made way for airline-friendly seating arrangements that packed as many people as possible onto each flight. This was the final death blow to Convair's jets, which were already expensive to operate. Many airlines chose to discontinue flying them and sold their fleets to other operators. These jets sometimes got a second life in general aviation as charter planes and flying testbeds, but they ended commercial service in 1987 when Spanish charter airline Spantax retired them.

The Convair 990 Coronado and its predecessor were groundbreaking aircraft. They were able to overcome the challenges that Boeing engineers initially didn't want to take on, allowing Convair to build one of the fastest subsonic jets in the history of aviation. Convair's speed record was only broken by the Concorde in 1996 when it hit Mach 2.04 while flying from New York to London. Today, only two other subsonic passenger jets have beaten Convair's mark — the Airbus A380 and the Boeing 747-8i — and it's been more than two decades since the last supersonic commercial flight took off. 

People just didn't want to pay substantially more for a long-range flight time that was just shorter by less than an hour. In fact, even the Concorde — which cut flight times in half — wasn't as popular because its roundtrip ticket prices were around $12,500 in today's money. Compare this to a London to New York roundtrip ticket on Delta, which can be under $1,000 today, and you'll see why only a few passengers are willing to pay for a faster airplane ride. However, the dream of faster-than-sound commercial flights still lives on today. American Airlines and United have signed a deal with Boom Supersonic to purchase jets in the future, allowing passengers to fly at Mach 1.7 and cutting flight times across the Atlantic in half. A Boom XB-1 recently broke the sound barrier in a test flight while still ensuring that its sonic boom did not reach the ground and disrupt the people in its flight path.