Airliners in 45 years ?

[Eric Mc]

fatboy b said:

Eric Mc said:

At the moment the long 737s are more or less the replacement for the 757. I wonder how long the 737 will stay in production.

The current order book (4500) equates to about 50% of what's been made so far. So I'd think a few more years yet.

That's kind of what I was thinking. I therefore don't think that Boeing will design a new 757 alternative. They will just keep refining the basic 737 concept.

[cerbfan]

We might get something using Sabre engines by then that could take us round the world in a couple of hours via space a bit like the Skylon concept however for earth bound passengers. A bit boring to think we'll just all still be travelling on slow virtually unchanged planes in 45 years time.

[Eric Mc]

The limits now are economic and environmental rather than technical. Indeed, we kind of hit that plateau around 1970. By 1973 it was obvious that it would be very difficult to operate an aircraft like Concorde economically and the situation hasn't changed much since then.

In the meantime, subsonic airliners have become more and more efficient from both an economic and an environmental; impact point of view. We may not be travelling any faster than a 1958 Boeing 707 but a modern 200 seater airliner is massively more efficient than its 1958 forebear.

[donutsina911]

http://boomsupersonic.com/

This popped up in LinkedIn feed randomly - looks like a reverse engineered Chinese Concorde. Interesting backers and team though...

[Evanivitch]

donutsina911 said:

http://boomsupersonic.com/

This popped up in LinkedIn feed randomly - looks like a reverse engineered Chinese Concorde. Interesting backers and team though...

They're planning to test a one third scale aircraft in 2017. I think that's incredibly hopeful they'll go supersonic and be able to progress to full scale. But best of luck to them.

[telecat]

Eric Mc said:

fatboy b said:

Eric Mc said:

At the moment the long 737s are more or less the replacement for the 757. I wonder how long the 737 will stay in production.

The current order book (4500) equates to about 50% of what's been made so far. So I'd think a few more years yet.

That's kind of what I was thinking. I therefore don't think that Boeing will design a new 757 alternative. They will just keep refining the basic 737 concept.

Looking at the Aero news they will have to. The 737MAX-9 just don't have the 757's load lugging capability or flying dexterity. The 737-9 is a flying screw up. It does not accelerate well on the runway or climb well to altitude. The cockpit and Fuselage are cramped. It's an odd ball. They stopped making 757s due to orders drying up. Unfortunately now they are getting long in the tooth the only option many airlines are finding to replace them are lower hours 757's. It seems the 757's niche is cyclical. And Airbus are breaking in. Only about 250 of the 737's orders are for the 757 "replacement". Airbus's A321NEO is similarly not "quite as good" as the 757 but has the bulk of the orders. Boeing know that there are at least 1000 potential orders. However the cost means they need to build over 1200 to break even. Dropping the 757 was a mistake and it's one they don't look like correcting soon.

[fatboy b]

Eric Mc said:

fatboy b said:

Eric Mc said:

At the moment the long 737s are more or less the replacement for the 757. I wonder how long the 737 will stay in production.

The current order book (4500) equates to about 50% of what's been made so far. So I'd think a few more years yet.

That's kind of what I was thinking. I therefore don't think that Boeing will design a new 757 alternative. They will just keep refining the basic 737 concept.

They're going to struggle with newer engines though surely with the short undercarriage compared to the A320.

[davepoth]

fatboy b said:

They're going to struggle with newer engines though surely with the short undercarriage compared to the A320.

That's pretty critical. They've lengthened the nosewheel on the 737 MAX by eight inches and the engines are 10 inches smaller than they "should" be (compared to the A320 which doesn't have a restriction but is similarly sized, anyway). Any big stretch to take it up to 757 size would need new main gear, and that's a fairly fundamental re-engineering of the plane.

[Eric Mc]

Have they announced this new 737 replacement yet?

[anonymous-user]

Eric Mc said:

fatboy b said:

Eric Mc said:

At the moment the long 737s are more or less the replacement for the 757. I wonder how long the 737 will stay in production.

The current order book (4500) equates to about 50% of what's been made so far. So I'd think a few more years yet.

That's kind of what I was thinking. I therefore don't think that Boeing will design a new 757 alternative. They will just keep refining the basic 737 concept.

It's called project Yellowstone.

787 was Y2. 757 replacement is next or Y1, then the 777-747 or Y3.

A 757 is very different in performance and capability to any 737 stretch or re engine.

It's not really guesswork or my opinion, it's boeing's plan.

[fatboy b]

davepoth said:

fatboy b said:

They're going to struggle with newer engines though surely with the short undercarriage compared to the A320.

That's pretty critical. They've lengthened the nosewheel on the 737 MAX by eight inches and the engines are 10 inches smaller than they "should" be (compared to the A320 which doesn't have a restriction but is similarly sized, anyway). Any big stretch to take it up to 757 size would need new main gear, and that's a fairly fundamental re-engineering of the plane.

I'd have thought Boeing would be better off developing variants of the 757 airframe like the A320 family, rather than the 737.

[hairyben]

telecat said:

Looking at the Aero news they will have to. The 737MAX-9 just don't have the 757's load lugging capability or flying dexterity. The 737-9 is a flying screw up. It does not accelerate well on the runway or climb well to altitude. The cockpit and Fuselage are cramped. It's an odd ball. They stopped making 757s due to orders drying up. Unfortunately now they are getting long in the tooth the only option many airlines are finding to replace them are lower hours 757's. It seems the 757's niche is cyclical. And Airbus are breaking in. Only about 250 of the 737's orders are for the 757 "replacement". Airbus's A321NEO is similarly not "quite as good" as the 757 but has the bulk of the orders. Boeing know that there are at least 1000 potential orders. However the cost means they need to build over 1200 to break even. Dropping the 757 was a mistake and it's one they don't look like correcting soon.

I thought the thinking today was more about consolidation. 757 might have advantages in isolation but you need all that goes with it, wheras the oleary/stelios world has shown the economic advantages of not having such a diversified fleet. I'm sure thats how the likes of emirates justfy so many 380's in what seems to be moving to an all 777/380 fleet.

[hairyben]

donutsina911 said:

http://boomsupersonic.com/

This popped up in LinkedIn feed randomly - looks like a reverse engineered Chinese Concorde. Interesting backers and team though...

Whats the guardians place in backing a rampant capitalist police states vanity project to serve societies elites? Perhaps the wrong forum.

Given the best aeronaughtical engineers consider a supersonic passenger plane unviable, so chinas key advantage (as ever) is they can build a plane to cope with the incredible stresses of supersonic flight by ripping off existing tech and banging it out cheaper... hmm. . you first old chap.

[donutsina911]

hairyben said:

Whats the guardians place in backing a rampant capitalist police states vanity project to serve societies elites? Perhaps the wrong forum.

Given the best aeronaughtical engineers consider a supersonic passenger plane unviable, so chinas key advantage (as ever) is they can build a plane to cope with the incredible stresses of supersonic flight by ripping off existing tech and banging it out cheaper... hmm. . you first old chap.

No idea what your first sentence means, or if there is any Chinese connection - as a layman, I was simply suggesting it looked like a Concorde knock off and that it may be relevant to 'Airliners in 45 years.' Guardian piece is here:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/mar/23/b...

[hairyben]

donutsina911 said:

No idea what your first sentence means, or if there is any Chinese connection - as a layman, I was simply suggesting it looked like a Concorde knock off and that it may be relevant to 'Airliners in 45 years.' Guardian piece is here:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/mar/23/b...

Oh, I read that as you were saying it WAS chinese. My bad.

[Eric Mc]

el stovey said:

It's called project Yellowstone.

787 was Y2. 757 replacement is next or Y1, then the 777-747 or Y3.

A 757 is very different in performance and capability to any 737 stretch or re engine.

It's not really guesswork or my opinion, it's boeing's plan.

What type of timescale are we looking at?

[rs4al]

I much prefer the 757 to the 737-8, I wish Boeing would hurry up and get the 757 replacement built !

[HoHoHo]

I was chatting to a BA Dreamliner Captain last week and he mentioned that fully loaded with passengers and freight back from Barbados (or wherever it was) he required 45 tonnes of fuel. The 777 that left before him was half empty with no freight and that needed 55 tonnes of fuel to get home.

I don't think aircraft will look massively different in the near future but they'll evolve and already we can see them becoming far more efficient and comfortable.

[telecat]

Efficient yes not sure about comfortable? The Dreamliner itself was going to have the most comfortable seats in Economy. The feedback is that despite the savings they are going for a very crowded seat layout in economy making it uncomfortable at the distances it is doing.

[TimJMS]

Agreed. Comfort has become an expensive commodity in flight.

Noise cancelling headphones and engine manufacturers have done more for passenger comfort than aircraft manufacturers in recent decades.