I’d been following the Boeing 787 project with a good deal of interest way back in 2005, and even before then when it had been called the 7E7. When I finally did get to fly on one in 2014, it was a disappointment. The windows took a very long time to dim, and also as others had complained, it didn’t dim entirely black. The cabin interior lighting was nothing remarkable, not like the wondrous beauty that some advertisements had depicted. I was disappointed that the shark-fin tail was replaced by a conventional-looking tail. Composites aside, it really wasn’t much of a revolutionary or particularly interesting jet.
Apparently its fuel efficiency is great, even better than expected (or so Qatar Airways said, I think.) It had a lot of lithium-battery fire and issues; Airbus did the smart thing by using traditional, heavier but safer, batteries in its A350, the European rival to the Dreamliner. And apparently many folks in Boeing complained about the logistical headaches caused by the extreme outsourcing process in building the jet.
Already looking forward to the 797, whatever it is. Maybe it’ll be a 737 replacement.
Ok, in the magical scenario where the cockpit shears cleanly off the nose, I think there remains one other consideration. On every flight I have been on, it always feels like the plane has a very slight positive pitch for most of the flight. This might be an illusion, but that is how it feels to me, as a passenger. There is a lot of air pressure holding the plane up, including a small amount of body lift. I expect that the cockpit falling off would initially fall upward, which means you would stand a fair chance of it tumbling over the top of the plane, leaving dents, and possibly damaging or amputating one or two of the control surfaces at the tail. Lose one of those and you will be righteously screwed – I mean, you would be screwed anyway, but without the rudder and/or an elevator fin, your situation is hopelesser.
Great economics, a delight to operate, a fresh albeit ordinary experience for the pax seems to be the one-sentence summary. Said another way, most of the cabin innovations have been made available on other aircraft as well. The current-build 737 has effectively the same interior “designer” features and lighting.
The biggest 787 innovation for the pax is the lower cabin altitude at cruise plus active cabin humidification which translates into less fatigue and less dehydration on a longer flight.
The 797 is now expected to be a replacement for the 757/767. Something will probably emerge from behind the smokescreen in the next 6 months.
The 737 has been stretched and folded like taffy to or past the breaking point and simply can’t get any bigger. And remains a nasty passenger experience despite the pretty mood lighting. The 787 can’t really get smaller or shorter-ranged than the -8 model already is.
That leaves a big hole in the so-called Middle of the Market or MOM mission. Which the 797 is expected to fill. Somehow.
Slight positive pitch is real; 1 or 2 degrees is typical. Some types cruise even more nose high.
Hopelesser indeed without the whole tail. Or at least hopelesser even quicker.
What’s wrong with the 737? I thought it was nice and cozy, the engines sounded nice and loud, and it actually moved in the air and vibrated and bumped instead of just being rock solid. I think it is passenger comfort-wise a quite nice aircraft.
Another thing not mentioned is the flight control computers and pitot probes are in the nose, near the cockpit. When the cockpit falls off, so do they. There would be no flight control computers nor air data from the pitot probes. Even if the aircraft retained perfect aerodynamics, it would not be flyable. It would be like Flight Simulator when your PC crashes – pulling on the joy stick does no good.
It’s not a matter of “patching into” cables from the passenger cabin – it’s a digital databus. Throughout the aircraft, multiplexer/demultiplexers called RDCs (Remote Data Concentrators) funnel data on and off the central data bus for both avionics and flight control.
Would it be possible to design an airliner with a “backup cockpit”, having its own separate backup flight control computers, backup avionics and backup air data probes – just in case the nose fell off the plane in flight? Yes, just like you could design a car with four redundant wheels for when you have four simultaneous blow outs.
Airliners are so reliable it’s not uncommon to talk to a retiring career pilot who has never had an engine failure, hydraulic failure or any other major system problem in his entire career. Designing for the detached cockpit scenario would be like putting a sheet of titanium on top of the aircraft to protect it from meteorites.
No: a big net. Those things are full of fancy, expensive avionics and computers and stuff. You could really make a lot on the black market. You know how they say “it fell off the back of a truck” ?
The 737 fuselage profile is essentially the survivor of the 1960s classic Boeings. New wings, new engines, new interiors, new control systems but that tube is what it is and you can only do so much to it. And besides passenger comforts, this means less room in the hold for paying freight other than luggage. ISTM the small version is still too much plane for the large-RJ role and the stretch is not quite a real substitute for a 757 in the mid-long haul.
You’d need some protection, though, the black market crowd can get pretty rowdy. I’ve heard that covering your vehicle in human skin will make it highly resistant to hypersonic armour piercing fuze-detonated explosive shells.
Serious answer: It comes up in the trade press fairly regularly.
Non-serious answer: Here in Miami a lot more stuff gets smuggled than just cocaine. e.g. “This engine was only used by a little old lady to fly to a charity village orphanage on Sundays.”
They should stop wasting time fighting the snakes and instead focus their efforts on flying the two parts of the plane back together by moving Shelly Winters’ casket about to change pitch and roll. Then use the snakes to tie the two parts of the plane back together.
