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Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

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Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#211

Post by WalterBright »

imoverclocked wrote: post #59
nostrademons wrote: post #21

It'll be interesting to see if they still can design and build a new ground-up airplane design. The last all-new design was the 787, initiated in 2003 and launched in 2009, and its design was fraught with problems. Before then was the 777 in the early 90s (pre-McDonnell takeover), and the 757/767 in the early 80s. There's a phenomena that ofter occurs with large organizations where once their markets mature, everybod…

The biggest tell will be just how over budget the development process becomes. Another issue in large companies trying to build something new is the scope creep which leads to committees and then decision by committee. If the folks leading this effort in Boeing are smart, they will keep the size of the team as small as possible. Maybe they will even hire some people back to lead this effort... assuming they can find…

> design it without sardines in mind

Boeing already does that. The seat size and spacing is determined by the airline customer.

Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#212

Post by davidkwast »

zdw wrote: post #197
davidkwast wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nokia is the best case study of what not to do. In 2005 Nokia launched the 770 Internet Tablet. It was the groundwork for the modern smartphone. But the management did not allow it to have a GSM modem. So it was not a smartphone. Only after the iPhone Nokia launched the N900 but it was too late. Nokia did not believe in touch screen too.

The 770 and Maemo environment were pretty amazing back in the day - high resolution screen for the time, but a somewhat laggy interface given the compute available at the time. Hardware was somewhat compromised - the half-height MMC storage expansion was particularly difficult to find. I still have one sitting around somewhere. It did support touch, with a stylus built in - I forget if the stylus was needed or if you…

True. But Nokia could do many improvements before Apple launched iPhone. But Nokia decided to stay only with Symbian without touch. And we had to wait 4 years to Android show what a Linux with Java smartphone would be. And we saw Nokia going down with Microsoft. It was interesting times back then.

Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#213

Post by TheLegace »

phkahler wrote: post #58
nostrademons wrote: post #21

It'll be interesting to see if they still can design and build a new ground-up airplane design. The last all-new design was the 787, initiated in 2003 and launched in 2009, and its design was fraught with problems. Before then was the 777 in the early 90s (pre-McDonnell takeover), and the 757/767 in the early 80s. There's a phenomena that ofter occurs with large organizations where once their markets mature, everybod…

>> There's a phenomena that ofter occurs with large organizations where once their markets mature, everybody who can build a product end-to-end leaves or gets forced out, leaving only people with highly specialized maintenance skillsets. A coworker from China once told me (and I can see it) everything in China is considered ephemeral. Companies in the US want to invest capital to generate ROI and recurring revenue (o…

Not to mention their customer service is amazing. I travelled several times, been to Shenzen, but mostly travelled to Shanghai for training and procurement of large manufacturing machines. To be honest I am a software person and was never really trained or taught fixing and maintaining moulds/machines.

But they have always been gracious and insanely dedicated to making sure my problems are solved and they show me how to rebuild everything. I have a dedicated WeChat group with their engineers and get back to me 7 days a week.

Compare that with a Candian machine, where I can rarely get a hold of a technican and they lack any deep expertise on anything even just to have a informal conversation on how to improve things at my plant.

Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#214

Post by maxglute »

UtopiaPunk wrote: post #98

China recently started building and delivering airplanes. It will be interesting to see if Boeing can actually compete with what is coming out of China over the next few years: https://www.voanews.com/a/7528331.html In the short-term, I imagine USA-based airlines will not be allowed to buy any airplanes from China: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-comac-military-... And perhaps they would not even be allo…

COMAC can only compete (geopolical drama aside) if engine efficiency improves or fuel prices decreases. TLDR every bit of COMAC can be modern / tier1 (and most of it is), but at current aviation fuel prices, 10-15% efficiency gap in engines will save more money on fuel over airframe lifetime. C919 is basically a 2025 narrow with a 2015 engine, but that old engine alone makes it not economically viable in most markets AT current aviation fuel prices. COMAC makes a lot of sense for PRC economically, not giving a cent to boeing, can build out COMAC specific support across country easily, but it's still commercially not well priced.

The caveate being COMAC is only expensive / has limited room to discount because it uses a lot of western components (for easy regulation/certification only). If PRC moves to a full soveign civil aviation stack, it would probably be very possible to price COMAC competitively, but that's more a medium/long term project. That's probably how it goes the way things are gonig, US probably not going to even certify/liimt where PRC planes can land to kneecap COMAC. PRC + RU can probably do some shenanigans like prevent US planes from flying over their airspace in retaliation and then it's a matter of how much divertion (extra fuel+travel costs) impact bottom line. At the end of the day geopolitics will determine how viable civil aviation projects are.

Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#215

Post by buildsjets »

addaon wrote: post #166
baud147258 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you want passengers to want your plane, design it without sardines in mind; People don't like being sardines. Isn't that something that's more the responsibility of the airlines, who decide how many seats are put in a plane, following the limits of the aircraft? Like if you want more legroom you take a more expensive ticket from a company that doesn't try to cram as many passengers in each plane

> Isn't that something that's more the responsibility of the airlines, who decide how many seats are put in a plane, following the limits of the aircraft? For pitch, yes. For width, no —- you run into quantization pretty quickly. The difference between sardines and standard economy is less than the difference between 3+3 and 3+2 — it’s not really feasible for most traditional airlines to choose a different number of…

Seat and aisle widths are customer selectable options. Hence, a customer may order a 787 with 3-3-3 seating or 2-4-2 seating. The vast majority of airlines chose sardines instead of comfort. In a 737, customers only can get 3-3 seating, but they can choose wide (17.8”) seats and skinny aisles, like Southwest does, or they can choose skinny (17.1”) seats and wider aisles, like Alaska does.

Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#216

Post by WalterBright »

addaon wrote: post #166
baud147258 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you want passengers to want your plane, design it without sardines in mind; People don't like being sardines. Isn't that something that's more the responsibility of the airlines, who decide how many seats are put in a plane, following the limits of the aircraft? Like if you want more legroom you take a more expensive ticket from a company that doesn't try to cram as many passengers in each plane

> Isn't that something that's more the responsibility of the airlines, who decide how many seats are put in a plane, following the limits of the aircraft? For pitch, yes. For width, no —- you run into quantization pretty quickly. The difference between sardines and standard economy is less than the difference between 3+3 and 3+2 — it’s not really feasible for most traditional airlines to choose a different number of…

Boeing is in constant communication with the airlines on new airplane designs, as they want to build the most profitable airplane for their customers that they can. This means the airline has a lot of input on fuselage diameter.

Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#217

Post by WalterBright »

Denvercoder9 wrote: post #209
addaon wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't that something that's more the responsibility of the airlines, who decide how many seats are put in a plane, following the limits of the aircraft? For pitch, yes. For width, no —- you run into quantization pretty quickly. The difference between sardines and standard economy is less than the difference between 3+3 and 3+2 — it’s not really feasible for most traditional airlines to choose a different number of…

There's no incentive. Passengers rarely know what type they'll be flying on when they book, and prioritize it over price even less. For airlines, a bigger airplane is a distinct disadvantage though, as it's operationally more expensive (increased cross section equals increased drag equals increased fuel burn).

A fully loaded 747 is extremely profitable, the large size has economies of scale. That's why the 747 was very very popular with the airlines.

So, yes, a 747 burns more fuel. But the fuel burn per paying passenger is less.

Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#218

Post by spogbiper »

TylerE wrote: post #194
mrguyorama wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Landing gear is limited by physics and just making it taller won’t fix everything. Every other plane is higher than the 737. The only reason the engines needed to be pushed forward on the 737, is that the 737 was built back in the day to be lower to the ground for easier operations at poorer airports, with things like stairs and baggage. The 737 doesn't need to be as short as it is anymore because the vast majority…

That isn’t really true. Air stairs are still very common in much of Europe and Asia. It’s only places like the US and the Middle East that jet bridges are ubiquitous.

also common in south america in my experience

Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#219

Post by lelanthran »

eastbound wrote: post #75
lisper wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> with large organizations where once their markets mature, everybody who can build a product end-to-end leaves or gets forced out, leaving only people with highly specialized maintenance skillsets It's not just building a product end-to-end. Tim Cook is a supply-chain guy. He knows how to build a product. What he doesn't know how is how to design a new one. This is the reason that all of the "new" stuff that has com…

There’s a beautiful conference (which I’ve lost) saying that science and technology can regress. We always talk about “the progress” but things do regress all the time; Tests I’ve cleared for employment can’t be passed by newcomers, the NASA wouldn’t be able to put a rocket on the moon today, and there is no downloadable Jira competitor anymore. In fact the speed of innovation is, pretty much, equal to the speed of m…

> and there is no downloadable Jira competitor anymore.

How much are you or your enterprise willing to pay for that?

See, the economics just don't make sense. Give me some VC money, a small team of experts in the domain and some runway and I'll give you a self-hosted alternative to Jira.

But the cost for you would be too high and I will go out of business trying to sell software while everyone else is renting it out.

Re: Boeing has started working on a 737 MAX replacement

#220

Post by Thorrez »

ghaff wrote: post #179
Filligree wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would buy an upgrade if it was twice the price. In reality it's more like 10x.

That is, in no small part, because business/first class is being subsidized by economy (and a lot of the passengers in those classes are status upgrades). So, yes, sticker price for upper class service is pretty expensive. In a world where upper class service was the norm on certain routes on certain planes it would probably be pretty expensive but probably cheaper than the upgrade on mixed class service.

Do you have a source showing $/sqft of economy vs business/first class? This video is basically saying the opposite of you: that business/first class subsidizes economy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzB5xtGGsTc

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