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Originally posted by waynos
If all the sums had worked out there would never have been a 787
Originally posted by waynos
You know Tim, I really can't tell if you have learned the British sense of humour or if you are being genuine.
The 787 features on several threads on here of the 'Airbus v Boeing' variety, but then I suppose its entirely possible that you don't read the Airliner threads in the same way that I don't read the antigrav/alien tech ones, in which case you could easily be unaware of it.
Originally posted by kilcoo316
The sonic cruiser was the stupidest idea I'd ever heard of!
I have absolutely no idea why any of the Boeing engineers never stopped the marketing people [the idea MUST have come from them] and told them to get a grip.
A typical graph of drag coefficient versus mach number.
Why, oh why would you want to take the hit on the drag rise for very marginal speed gains?
Originally posted by waynos
The 777, another *spectacular* aeroplane, a Jumbo Jet with only two engines, bears no relation with the 7J7 and it is futile pretending that it does. You fail to mention that the first Boeing 777 was a stretched trijet version of the 767 which failed miserably to attract any interest whatsoever *and so Boeing started again with a clean sheet of paper* to create the brilliant 777 we have today.
Originally posted by waynos
When you look at a photo of a 777 it can be quite deceptive as the fact it is a twin jet can mask just how huge it is.
Originally posted by carcharodon
Failure? not quite. As Boeing has proven time and time again from their failures comes great ultra successful planes. They lost the competition to the Heavy Air transporter in the 60's, what they learned became the foundations of the 747 Jumbo. In the Early 80's the 7J7 project was scrapped when oil prices fell. It included Fly by Wire, larger use of composites and a 25% of Japanese products. What became of those developments, is the ultra efficient and top seller and most advanced commercial plane in service, the 777.
So what happened with all the R&D of the Sonic Cruiser, well the 787 emerged having sold over 400 frames 18 months before flying... a new record in the industry...
[edit on 17-11-2006 by carcharodon]
Many people assume that the 747 was a direct outgrowth of Boeing's C-5
effort, and that the 747 is, in effect, a civilian version of our C-5
design. I recently had the opportunity to video tape an extensive
interview with Dick Withington, who was one of Boeing's top
aerodynamicists with a career spanning the B-17 to the 767, and who was
heavily involved in Boeing's C-5 effort. I asked him what, if any,
relationship there really was between the C-5 design and the 747. His
answer was none. Everything about the two designs was different, he said,
engines, wing, tail, fuselage, structure, landing gear, etc. The only
relationship of one program to the other was the fact that when Boeing
lost the C-5 competition, Withington sent about 100 of his C-5 engineers
up to Everett to work on the new 747 program. They took with them their
experience of working on the design of a large transport aircraft, but
that was the only thing from the C-5 program that ended up on the 747
program. Otherwise the programs were completely different, and the
airplanes, Withington said, were as different as night and day.
C. Marin Faure
author, Flying A Floatplane