Originally posted by milesrus:
The DC-10 is not the cargo version of the MD-11. The DC-10 was built first as a fuel plane to refuel military planes inflight. It became a commercial airplane in the early 70's. In the early 90's this plane after a $4 billion upgrade program was built as the MD-11 with many new features, a more fuel efficient wing etc. American will retire all of these by next year. They are all being sold to FEDEX for cargo conversion.[/QUOTE/]
milesrus - The DC-10 was well into its production run as a commercial airliner before the KC-10 tanker was introduced. First delivery of the DC-10 was 29 July 1971. The customer acceptance date for the first KC-10 was 01 October 1981. The first KC-10 was the 311th fuselage in the DC-10 production run. The KC-10 is a DC-10 Series 30 Convertible Freighter Fuselage.