This isn’t a GQ because I doubt there is a factual answer. I was six when Beoing came out with the 727. The 747 made a big splash–double decker! The 777 had a nice ring to it. Today’s news showed the rollout of the new Boeing 787. Sometime they will eventually roll out a 797.
Then what?
Do they just keep incrementing and go to the 7107?
Do they imitate Nissan, who rolled over the next decimal place and went from the 280Z to the 300Z, and move up to the 818?
Do they imitate Intel, who dropped the digits and came out with the Pentium (instead of calling it 586)? Imagine the Boeing Octocade.
Has Boeing given this even a moment’s thought? Is the next plane even on the drawing board yet?
Originally the 787 was not going to have a number, it was to be the Dreamliner, but some other their Asia customers wanted the “8” since it’s lucky. This, according to Hubby, who knows some of the PTB.
I seem to remember reading that Boeing has long used sevens in the names for their airplanes, even before their first jetliner the 707 came out. For instance, there was a Boeing 377 Stratocruiser prop plane. I’d imagine they’ll keep using some variation of the lucky seven theme when the time comes to build a replacement for the 797.
If they start making lighter, more fuel-efficient planes, they could reflect that by having the numbers go down. I think flying on a Boeing 666 could really catch on.
Off the top of my head, there were the 247 (roughly contemporary with the DC-3), the 307 (first airliner with a pressurized cabin), and the 377. And the 707 prototype was developed under the project number 367-80, possibly to conceal the fact that they were building a jet.
However, there were also the 314 (late-30s flying boat), and the 720 (a shortened version of the 707 for medium-range trips).
I’m not too worried about them running out right away. An all-new airliner design is not an everyday undertaking. The 777 has been in service for 15 years, already. Figure there’s 15 years before the 797, and I should just live long enough to see what comes after that.
So the historic format (for land planes, not flying boats) is **7, with 7*7 being the 1958-2020 run, probably due to the huge success of 707; and even then they already broke pattern, with the 720 in the early 60s. So most likely they’ll keep a “7” in the model somehow.
And there will probably be a couple of decades to go with “dash” generations of the 777 and 787 before those categories need a replacement. The next classes that could contemplate new-tech replacement would be in fact classes that have been in service 40+ years and still going strong --the 737 (short/med haul narrowbody, 110-180 seat class) and 747 (large-cap long range 4-engine heavy widebody) and the latest gens of these are pretty recent still. Interestingly, the 1980’s 757 was discontinued in 2004 and much of its market spot filled by… the latest stretch of the 737. The 767 assembly line stays alive on freighter and potential military orders though it would have been expected to give way to the 787 (which would also take over the upper end of the 757 market).
I don’t think they’ll ever require new designations. The 737-900 produced today is almost entirely different from a 737-200, and a 747-800 is another example of a very extensive redesign of a plane fitting into a particular market segment and therefore sharing a part of a name with a 747-200.
The 797 could be closer than you think. If they conclude they have to counter the Airbus 320NEO (with the Pratt geared turbofan), they can’t realistically do it with the 737 platform even without the exclusive GE CFM contract due to its diameter. Their only real option would be an all-new single-aisle using 787 technology, and they’d have to get going pretty much right now.
Oh yeah, the one after that, the 777 replacement to counter the A350? I’ll go with 807. The final 7 is more time-honored than the first one.
Thing is, these are Type Designations and they define the plane itself; it’s length, weight, barrel diameter, etc. While there are extensive re-designs from the original version to the ones rolling off the assembly line today, a large part of the plane is fixed as a “737”. Boeing couldn’t simply make a “737 with a composite body” because it couldn’t fit under the same Type Designation, which is controlled by the certifying authority (FAA, Transport Canada, CAA-UK, etc).
What could be done is use the name for marketing purposes, though the plane would still have to have a different number on it’s Type Cert. This is what Bombardier did with it’s Challenger 300 planes. They built upon the reliability and market of the Challenger 600-series aircraft, but the 300 is actually a whole other plane; 600s (and the CRJs) are CL-600-#### while the 300 is a BD-100-1A10.
I wonder if, as the old planes get older, people will stop associating them with reliability and start associating them with age and, unfortunately, accidents and incidents. In that case, I think Boeing would be better off developing a new legacy of planes, though keeping the final 7 if possible.
Its original name was the 7e7 Dreamliner. It seems like the 7-letter-7 names are more or less internal project names.
Their 7d7 is otherwise known as the 777-900 ER, and I’d have to assume they’ve also had the 7a7, 7b7 and 7c7 models, and I’d also have to assume that 7f7, 7g7 and maybe even a 7h7 are at least being sketched out now.
If they really want something to sell to Emirates Air, they’ll create the 888-800 ER.
Let’s not forget Boeing’s efforts to build an American SST in the 1960s. Internally, it was the Model 733 (with a -xxx suffix as the design evolved), but it was best known in public as the 2707.