"Peter Dohm" wrote in message
...
Bertie the Bunyip writes:

All airplanes are aging, you idiot.

The 707 has been doing it longer than most. John Travolta's was
built in 1964.


And the AWACS 707s are going to be in service post 2037.


They'r enot actually 707's. They look a bit like them, but they're
substantially different airplanes.. Boeing's own designation for them
was 717, in fact.



The predecessor of the 707 was the KC-135, the 717. The AWACS 707s are
indeed militarized commercial 707s.


That's interesting, since the current Boeing redition of the DC-9/MD-80 is
also designated as 717.

There was also a Boeing 720, in the bad-old-days, but I didn't bother to
look any of this up...


Details are available on
http://www.boeing.com/commercial/707family/deriv.html

"The KC/C-135 series was initially designated within The Boeing Company as
the model 717. In January 1998, the 717 model number was reassigned to the
commercial line for the 717-200 regional jetliner.
Additionally, three 707-120s plus two 707-320Bs, designated VC-137s, were
delivered to the Military Airlift Command for transporting high government
officials. These 707s transported the President for more than 30 years until
replaced in 1990 by two 747-200s designated as VC-25s.

Recent military applications of the 707 are the E-3 Airborne Warning and
Control System or AWACS (used by the U.S. Air Force, NATO, the Saudi
government and the French and British air forces for airborne surveillance,
command and control) and the E-6 used by the U.S. Navy for submarine
communications.

When the 707 production line was closed at the end of May 1991, Boeing had
sold 1,010 of all types (not counting the KC-135 series). "