What makes the Boeing 7E7 a more efficient design? How much more efficient is it than current jets? Will this be built in Boeing’s Washington state facility?
http://www.boeing.com/commercial/7e7/flash.html
Don’t know about how the 7E7 would be better than any other jet. But, about the plant site, Saturday’s local paper says 12 states are vying for the assembly plant. Of those Washington, Texas, and Florida, are supposed to be the front runners. The local angle is because we have a fairly recently shut-down USN Air Station that has very long runways (the Space Shuttle could use one of 'em), and a city government eager to attract such businesses (well, any business bigger than a hot-dog stand, really).
Well Boeing’s site says 15-20% more efficient which is pretty ambitious. It isn’t built yet so there may be some compromise between what they want to do and what it takes to build a real-world airplane. Will be interesting to see how it does in a market that already has too many airplanes to be profitable.
FWIW Mesa (a satellite of Phoenix) is vying for the 7E7 plant but I don’t think the Salt River is deep enough for the shipping port Boeing wants.
Don’t forget Michigan’s in the running too. We have the ports, rail, highways, skilled labor, and aircraft-building history needed for a neat project like this.