From: "John Beamish" 

And yet -- today -- looking back on that "gamble", it seems to
have been a lock.  Marshalling the necessary resources to move ahead on a
project like that is such an awesome accomplishment in and of itself that
the actual successful delivery of the product seems somewhat underwhelming.

On Sun, 25 Feb 2007 10:39:25 -0500, Monte Davis
 wrote:

> "John Beamish"  wrote:
>
>> "But in a presentation to analysts and investors, EADS chief financial
>> officer Andreas Sperl said that the planemaker still expected to sell
>> more
>> than 750 of its new planes over the life of the project."
>
> I learned a lot from my father, who joined American Airlines c. 1954
> when the DC-7 ruled, and retired as an editor of an air travel trade
> mag in 1985. One point he liked to make was that in 1966-1970,
> Boeing's 747 development was accurately described as a "bet the
> company" gamble that came near to sinking them.
>
> Through the 70s, 80s and 90s that became the case for more and more of
> new jetliner development. Even against a steadily rising background of
> air travel volume and revenue, the "table stakes" -- and the sales
> numbers needed -- were rising even faster. My father would say:
> "Everybody in the business likes to recall the old fail-and-try-again
> swashbucklers like Trippe and Hughes and [AA's] CR Smith -- but those
> guys had no *idea* how financially white-knuckle it could get..."
>
> Monte Davis
> http://montedavis.livejournal.com

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