Originally Posted by ExSimGuy
I see references to the "B717" and I've been puzzled for a while. The Boeing website doesn't give an "history" of its aircraft.
The essential point was that the 717 was just the Boeing company model number for the military tanker KC-135 airframe, which was slightly narrower than the 707 passenger airframe. Later military versions of the 707 airframe gained designations like C-137, E-3, E-6....., but there was no other 717 airframe other than the KC-135 (and its offshoots like the RC-135 and EC-135).
Fast forward to the late 1990s when Boeing absorbed McDonnell-Douglas. They canned the MD-11 and MD-80/90 but kept the MD-95 airframe, which was renamed the Boeing 717. Production of the 717 was formally ended last year. The MD-90 and MD-95/717 are very much under-rated aircraft in my view.