Boeing plans for ultra-long range 777

[J.D.]

Already a great aircraft:

http://www.theage.com.au/travel/travel- ... 2j5b7.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

They are planning to boost its range to 17,600km, which would make it possible to fly non-stop from London to Sydney.

Demand for the new type is expected to be relatively low. With code share politics, in usually means stop overs to boost trade.

We should have bought the bloody thing years ago.

The B777 was a major factor in the partnership between Qantas and Emirates. Qantas had been in a position to buy the on three occasions since the late 1990s and had passed every time. Not entirely sure why but greed seems to be high on the list. They could have retired a lot of their older B747s and replaced them with B777s of similar capacity and much lower operating costs. It seems to me that the board decided that persisting with older types was easier than planning for the future and in the end, it cost them dearly. Qantas suddenly became a less attractive proposition than it had once been and the profitability of the overseas arm plummeted. Thanks Geoff Dixon, Margaret Jackson, James Strong and all those other smug board members.

In the end it was far easier to go into partnership with Emirates than it was to bite the bullet and buy B777s. The offset is that we no longer have complete control over our flagship carrier.

[DexterPunk]

Just from a purely passenger perspective, I much prefer a 747 than 777. The 747 I was on from Dallas to Bris had sooo much more room. Maybe it's just the way it was fitted out. The 777 I have flown on was Thai, and the 747 Qantas. Their staff on board were the best I've had as well. It truly was a pleasure to fly with them. I've heard they have been trying to turn things around a bit of late and it really showed.

[Scottie]

I've flown in a 747 once, but 777's many times... I flew in both with Malaysian Airlines in 2010, and found them almost identical in terms of comfort and service. I guess being the same airline it's easier to match them then, but I've since flown the 777 with Emirates, and damn it's a nice plane. I'll be on one again this weekend along with an A380. The A380 is much bigger though, 777 can't quite get that good at the moment, but I may be wrong!

[J.D.]

Comfort issues usually come down to seat pitch and seat width.

The problem is how bloody minded the company accountants are. Your legroom - seat pitch - is determined by how many rows the airline decides is appropriate in terms of cramming passengers in vs pissing passengers off. For each row, add 10 passengers on the B747 and 9 for the B777. That's a lot of revenue. You can check what your airline offers here:

http://www.seatguru.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Seat width is another issue. At the moment, there is a bit of a battle on to maximise the width of the aircraft without tempting the airlines to add an extra seat to each row. This is why the thing about putting a bar or a gym or a creche or a shop on an A380 was never going to happen. Leave any space and the operators will put more seats in it.

[DexterPunk]

It could well have been that Qantas use better seats, and arrange them better than Thai. We also booked the seats well in advance so we only had two seats in our row rather than three. That makes a fair difference.


Sent from Han Solo using TK-421's phone.

[J.D.]

Yep, both valid points.

[DexterPunk]

Yeah I did a 16 hour stretch, that was pretty full on, however that was on the 747 I mentioned, and it made it more bearable than the 14 hour flight on the way over.

I thought the same about speeding up the flight times quite a few times on the holiday. 15 flights in 6 weeks was pretty crazy lol.

You certainly know your planes!


Sent from Han Solo using TK-421's phone.

[J.D.]

It's time for them to start looking at ways to go faster again.

Not economically viable I'm afraid.

The sonic boom problem appears to have been solved and the engine and materials technology appears to be now up to the task.

How so? The engineering can do it - that's true. In fact, the venerable Concorde was a supercruiser.

What about the boom though? Anything traveling at supersonic speed will make a bang.

[J.D.]

Well, there are ways and means but forgive me for being a bit cynical.

The key to "solving" the sonic boom is to reduce the shock, which also reduces drag. This is why I'm a bit dubious. An awful lot of that sort of research already exists. Richard Whitcomb spent a lifetime researching the effects of shockwaves and developed the concepts of Area Rule and the Supercritical Wing.

These concepts have multiple benefits; performance (particularly transonic and supersonic), fuel economy and range being among them. Central to all of this is the reduction in the intensity of the shockwave. The Supercritical wing achieves this by putting more of the shock on the undersurface but ultimately,there's no such thing as a free lunch and the air has to return to equilibrium somehow.

As you already know, any aircraft will have a critical Mach number, usually referred to as Mcrit. This is the Mach number at which the airflow becomes sonic at some point on the airframe. The longer you can delay that point, the better because it creates a shockwave and the freestream will always be <M1. There is just no other possibility. You move air out of the way and you impart acceleration to it. The only way not to do that it not to divert it. Mcrit does not mean the aircraft is creating a sonic bang though. That comes when the entire airframe is traveling at M1 or greater.

It does not mean though that improvements cannot be made and we agree that it's about reducing the intensity of the shock. It's just that until an aircraft can be made 100% efficient, it cannot solve the basic problem. If you have any more on this, I'd be interested to read about it.