unsuccessfully. Design The Dassault Mercure was a jet-powered narrow-body jet airliner, optimised for short-haul routes. It intentionally exchanged fuel for passenger capacity in order to carry a greater passenger load. As such, the Mercure had up to 17 per cent more seats than the competing Boeing 737 while having a shorter range. It was designed to be outfitted with a two-crew flight deck, although operator Air Inter had its aircraft flown by three-man crews. According to Flight International, the basic model of the Mercure featured a degree of built-in stretch potential. Elements of the design were reportedly capable of supporting the envisioned expanded model with little or no change, including much of the wing, cabin, and the undercarriage. The landing gear was spaced to accommodate the fitting of longer legs to, in turn, enable larger engines and an elongated fuselage to be later adopted. The wing of the Mercure was largely conventional. It was relatively thick, possessing a section of 12.5 per cent thickness at the wing root, slimming to 8.5 per cent thickness at the tip of the wing. Aspects of the Mercure's wing, such as the general layout and individual wing sections, were optimised using a combination of wind tunnel tests and computer-generated simulations by Dassault's design team. The wing had a good lift/drag ratio and a high block efficiency. The flaps formed a continuous spanwise unit when deployed in the take-off position, requiring neither low-speed ailerons nor cut-outs to accommodate jet exhaust, due to the engines being fixed low down upon deep pylons. Production Mercures were powered by a pair of Pratt & Whitney JT8D-15 turbofan engines, capable of generating a maximum of 15,500 lb (69 kN) thrust. These were mounted on underwing pylons, which were designed with anti-vibration mountings. The engines themselves featured joint Snecma/Dassault-developed thrust reverser and noise suppression systems. Significant attention had been paid to reducing engine noise, this issue having been one of the final topics of research during the Mercure's development. According to Flight International, there was a perception that the Federal Aviation Administration of the United States, a major potential market for the Mercure, may enact regulations that would necessitate the implementation of a noise-attenuation retrofit programme, and thus Dassault needed to be prepared to address this foreseen scenario. Dassault emphasised the commercial value of the Mercure, highlighting its low operating costs across short sectors, which principally resulted from its refined