[July 4th]

According to the airliners.net folks, this was the oldest DC-10 still in service and they 4th one ever built.

[jettester]

I worked in the program office for the MD-10 when still employed at MDC/Boeing. FedEx had essentially bought up all of the available and usable DC-10's on the open market and converted all of them to the MD-10 configuration. The mods literally ripped out all of the wiring; upgraded all components in the cockpit to an MD-11 equivalent one; changed the crew requirements from P/CoP/FE to just P/CoP; and the engines were all overhauled. Also, the large cargo door was added in the fuselage.

FedEx had a rule about high flight hours on the birds they picked up but many of them, nevertheless, were old calendar wise. The MD-10 project gave FedEx almost brand new airplanes for 1/3 the cost of a new plane.