Dassault Aviation from France designed the Mercure to fly short routes very efficiently. First flying in 1971 and entering service with Air Inter in 1974, this is one rare aircraft indeed.
The reason it is rare is that nobody purchased the aircraft except Air Inter, which was a French domestic airline. Even so, the aircraft remained in service through to 1995 and it has an interesting story.
Dassault Mercure Video
There is an informative and well put together video about the Mercure which you can see below. This follows on from the Lockheed L-1011 TriStar video I posted last week and is made by the same people who created that one.
Trying to take the 150 seat short range market, Dassault thought they would do very well. As a manufacturer of successful military aircraft and business jets, they had the engineering know how to make this work.
Pilots had a heads up display – something that is also on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner – which was unheard of in commercial aviation at that time. Optimised for short missions, the aircraft featured a low weight and advanced aerodynamics for more efficiency.
With a maximum range of just 1,700 kilometres, it was very suitable for short domestic routes in France. However, this meant that sales in other countries never materialised as this was just too short for other carriers.
Overall Thoughts
Aircraft failures are always interesting, as even the best intentions don’t always translate to commercial success. Optimistically, four production plants were built for the aircraft, which must have seemed as an expensive waste considering only 12 aircraft were eventually built.
Even so, the aircraft never had an accident and worked very well for Air Inter, an airline that became part of Air France in 1997.
Did you know about the Mercure or ever have the opportunity to fly on board one? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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Featured image by Michel Gilliand via Airliners.net
Another major flaw was that the doors would open below the “floatation line”, which effectively prohibited flights over water…
Wow, I didn’t know that – that doesn’t sound great. Thanks for the comment!
I was trying to fly aboard it 30 years ago. I didn’t try hard enough.
As great as the plane was, it was poor planning not to have provisions for greater range.
That’s a shame! Yes, that was its achilles heel really, lack of range. Thanks for the comment!
I’ve been through the preserved example at Le Bourget. Truthfully, I think the design could have been evolved to gain sales, but by the time they were ready to acknowledge the planes shortcomings, Airbus was already a thing and the French government was kind of “over” the Mercure.
I haven’t yet been to visit the Mercure – it’s something I’d like to do sometime. I think you’re right on all counts there – it certainly could have been evolved. What is interesting is that the aircraft was not “given” to Airbus – after all, the hard work had been done, all it probably needed was further development. The Airbus A320 didn’t come about until the late 1980s, so it would have had an aircraft in that space earlier had they done that. However, it’s easy to apply that logic 40 years or so after the fact – it’s different at the time of course. Thanks for the comment!
Air Inter was also known as Air Enfer (sounds the same as Inter in French and means “Hell”. I never flew the Mercure but the passenger experience on Air Inter was truly awful. The only redeeming feature was the Michelin-starred restaurant at Orly. And you didn’t need to be flying to eat there…
I didn’t realise the passenger experience on Air Inter was so bad. It can’t have been all good, considering it was eventually merged into Air France. I can imagine the Michelin-starred restaurant at Orly would have been pretty nice though 🙂 Thanks for the comment!