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The 737-600 is a shrink of the baseline NG - the 737-700. The fuselage is essentially that of the -700, with two plugs of 1.37m (fwd) and 1.01m (aft) removed giving an overall length of 31.2m (102ft 6in). The engines are derated to 19.5k and the wingtip skin panels have a slightly increased gauge to elliminate flutter. The launch order for the 737-600 came from SAS on 15 March 1995 and the type made its first flight on 22 Jan 1998. The aircraft pictured below, SE-DTH (28313/447) was one of the first -600s being delivered to SAS in Dec 1999. It was later re-registered to LN-RGK. SAS retired its last 737-600, LN-RPG, on 30/11/2019 after 21 years of service. On its final flight it spelt out the number 600. |
All of the information, photographs & schematics from this website and much more is now available in a 374 page printed book or in electronic format. *** Updated 05 Aug 2023 *** |
Sadly the 737-600 was not a commercial success, with only 68 of the type being built. The situation is analogous to the A318 of the A320 family and arguably the 747SP and demonstrates that the economics of shrinking an airliner are not good because the DOW/MTOW ratio is just too high, ie the aircraft are disproportionately heavy for the payload. I have been fortunate enough to fly several 737-600s on post maintenance air tests and customer demonstration flights and I found the handling to be generally good although they do feel a little longitudinally unstable. A colleague once described them to me as having the flying characteristics of a "wobbly arrow". Nevertheless, they will be missed. |