can learn anything, from graphic design, to how to grow a YouTube channel. The

first 650 people to sign up will get two months for just 99 Cents. Check out the

link below. In the late 1960's, Dassault Aviation made a huge bet. The company

designed its first commercial airliner, the Mercure 100, to do one thing

fantastically well. Fly short routes more efficiently than any other airliner. With

the hope of taking on rival giants like Boeing, Dassault invested large sums into

developing its new jet, and built several factories in anticipation of demand. But

if you've never heard of the Mercure, it's because airlines weren't interested

in buying it. And Dassault's new jet would go down as one of the worst commercial

failures in aviation history.

designed and built by French aircraft manufacturer Dassault,

the Mercure 100 first flew in 1971. It was an impressive aircraft for its day

with advanced aerodynamics and a wider cabin than its competitors. And it

offered some pretty impressive features, including a heads-up display system for

its pilots. The Mercure had great performance characteristics, especially

climbing out of congested airports. But most importantly, it was efficient. The

Mercure had been highly optimized for short-range air routes. So here's a plane

that would save Airlines money. But to understand why virtually no airline

ended up buying it, we need to look at the Mercure's development, and why

Dassault built the aircraft in the first place. In the 1960s Dassault was a

company renowned for its iconic Mirage military fighter aircraft and Falcon

business jets, but the company had bigger ambitions and had spotted an opportunity.

See many civil air routes around the world were actually very short, under a

thousand miles and at the time a lot of these short haul routes were served by

Boeing's recently introduced 737 and Douglas DC-9. Dassault figured that if it

could design an airliner optimized specifically for these very short routes

then it could outperform Boeing's and Douglas's offerings in a key segment of

the market. With low operating costs and a break-even load factor, airlines

initially showed interest. But building such a plane was an ambitious

undertaking. Luckily for Dassault the French

government was also convinced of the market demand for a specialized

short-range airliner. The government was eager for Dassault to build a 737

competitor and to spur France's aviation industry. It provided a loan for just

over half the development costs, which were to be repaid through sales of the

aircraft. Development started in 1967 and Dassault was so confident in the Mercure

concept that had built four factories across France to meet the anticipated

demand. Reportedly the company was expecting to

built its 300th airliner in less than a decade. Like the rival Boeing 737, the

Mercure was powered by a pair of proven but now dated Pratt & Whitney turbo fans

But despite having virtually the same engines as the 737, the Mercure could

carry more passengers and despite being larger the Mercure could even out climb

the 737. These impressive performance advantages were due to the Mercure being

so well optimized for short sectors. By significantly reducing fuel tank size,

Dassault reduced the structural weight of its airliner by as much as 10%. By

using state-of-the-art computer design tools, Dassault created a specialized wing

giving the Mercure excellent climb and descent performance - an important

metric for efficient short haul flights. But these advantages, of course, come with

some trade-offs. See a fully loaded Mercure had a maximum range of only one

thousand miles. A Boeing 737-200 had a much greater range, up to three times as

much on some later variants. But there was also another important design

difference. A 737 was a robust aircraft which could be suited to serve both

short and medium sectors, so Boeing was able to adapt the airframe and adopt new

engines to cater to different segments of the market

a 737-100 introduced in 1968 carried a 103 passengers over 1,700

miles. But after four decades of development the 737 had evolved into an

entire family of aircraft, with some variants having more than twice the

passenger capacity and range of the original. While the Mercure had also been

designed with stretch potential, its mission was always going to be decidedly

short-haul. Modifying the aircraft to increase its range so it could serve a

broader segment of the market like the 737 wasn't going to be easy.

And so the Mercure's high degree of design optimization for short-haul

routes, rather than being a competitive advantage quickly became an enormous

problem. Dassault aggressively marketed the Mercure as an economical choice for

airlines. With its unparalleled short range performance, it should have been

attractive to airlines that were operating 737's

and DC-9's on short-haul routes. But the Mercure refused to sell. See if

you operate the Mercure out of France, Dassault's proposition makes some sense.

But from outlying European countries like Spain, the Mercure's limited range

is... well very limiting. And in the United States that limited range becomes an

even bigger problem. Airlines, as it turns out, we're willing to take a hit on

operating efficiency even if it meant they'd have an aircraft that was

versatile to fill both medium and short range roles. Some argue that Dassault's

decision to market the Mercure as a direct 737 competitor also contributed

to its commercial failure. Well in many ways the Mercure was a conventional

airliner its range made it more of a high-capacity regional jet. But there

were other factors going against the aircraft, like the 1970 Oil Crisis which

limited Airlines purchasing power, a devalued US dollar and a high rate of

European inflation - all of which had made the Mercure

more expensive to purchase. Air Inter, an airline in which the French government

had a large ownership stake, was the only airline to ever purchase Mercure's and it

ordered only 10. An 11th Mercure, a prototype that had been refurbished was

later also delivered to the airline. Dassault struggled to recover from its

colossal commercial miscalculation, and reportedly the company would need to

sell somewhere between 120 and 150

Mercure's just to break even. So the company raced to develop improved

versions like the Mercure 200C, which was to have improved range. But the

Mercure design's had been so carefully optimized for short routes, you could say

the company had engineered itself into a corner. Because the extensive design

modifications that would have been needed to give the Mercure additional

fuel capacity, well, were simply too expensive to ever make it a profitable

proposition. The 11 Mercure's that did enter service would go on to fly until

1995. They safely carried over 44 million passengers and made over 400,000 flights -

albeit short efficient flights. But the story of French

aviation didn't end with the Mercure, it was really just the beginning.

I've been getting a lot of emails asking for advice on growing a YouTube channel,

so I want to share some insights and to plug our sponsor Skillshare, an online

learning community with over 18,000 courses on just about anything, including

design business technology, even courses specifically designed to help YouTube

creators. If you're gonna start a YouTube channel, persistence and creating quality

content is just the beginning, because there's more to this YouTube thing than

meets the eye. Every minute 300 hours of content gets

uploaded to YouTube, so if you want your videos to stand out, you'll need to

understand how YouTube actually works, the importance of things like effective

video descriptions, SEO tags, video thumbnails, sharing on social media, even

the time of day you upload can impact your chances of success. The formula that

makes a successful video is more of an art than a science, so you want to make

sure you have all your bases covered. A great Skillshare course to help you do

that is Matt Ballek's How To Grow Your YouTube Channel which teaches the

fundamentals of optimizing your video so you have a much better shot of reaching

viewers. I'd also recommend checking out Phil Ebiner's Youtube's Best Practices

for a great high level discussion on how you can find and grow your audience. Of

course you could scour the internet for bits and pieces of this information, but

if you're anything like me you'd rather spend your time actually making videos.

And that's why Skillshare with its thousands of videos designed to help you

with YouTube video editing, animation and much more is such a fantastic resource.

The first 650 viewers who sign up for Skillshare using the link in the

description will get two months of learning for just 99 cents, after that

it's just $10 a month. Whatever your passion skill share have got you covered.