Convair 990 Coronado 990A

The 990A was developed by adding fairings to the engine nacelles, among other changes. The aim was to fix the initial 990's speed shortfall: streamlining the engine pylon/wing interface together with the nacelle fairings finally achieved Mach 0.89. Even so, neither the modifications from the basic 880 nor those made in response to the drag problems found in testing let the aircraft live up to its promise of non-stop coast-to-coast service from JFK to LAX: American Airlines' timetables show little or no difference between 707 and 990A flights. The airline began disposing of its 990As in 1967.

In May 1961 one of the pre-production 990s, demonstrating the margin between its operating speed and its capability in a Mach 0.97 dive from 32,000 to 22,500 ft, reached 1,086 km/h at 22,000 ft: the fastest true airspeed ever attained by a commercial jet transport at that time.

The price was fuel burn. In 1963 the 990A was reported to burn 13,750 pounds of fuel per hour at Mach 0.84 and 35,000 ft at a mass of 200,000 pounds.

Swissair bought eight 990As from 1962 and used them on long-haul routes to South America, West Africa, the Middle and Far East, as well as on high-density European routes; it withdrew the fleet in 1975. Scandinavian Airlines also operated Coronados on its long-haul schedules to Tokyo and other Far East destinations, and to South America and Africa.

The 990's niche was soon captured by the Boeing 720 and 720B, derivatives of the 707, and later by the Boeing 727. By the time the assembly line shut down in 1963 only 37 had been produced, bringing General Dynamics' entire commercial jet airliner output to 102 airframes. When the major airlines retired them, the 990s found a second life with charter operators: Spantax kept a large fleet until the mid-1980s, as did Denver Ports of Call. In 1967 Alaska Airlines bought Convair 990 PP-VJE from Varig and operated it as N987AS in scheduled service until 1975.