Boeing 737 turns 50 Boeing's 737, the world's most common airliner, turned 50 over the weekend: the single-aisle workhorse first took to the skies on April 9th, 1967. The first versions of the plane were feeble by today's standards: the 737 100 “boasted” a range of just 1,150 miles (1,850km) and offering just 107 seats. Both of those features …
@Etatdame - eh, I myself am warming to Southwest. They're cheap, but not obnoxiously so (helloooo, Spirit, Ryanair etc.) and the cabin crew are invariably good-natured and pleasant.
I used to swear by United and BA, but both have taken a nose-dive (pardon the unfortunate phrase) in recent years - copying the budget airlines' penny-pinching ways, but not realizing that by doing so they are destroying their brand image and customer loyalty. United since the Smisek era, and BA since the IAG acquisition - nope, sorry, I'm not going to put up with such obvious contempt for the customer.
A quick web search tuns up list prices from $80m-$117m or so. If you're a large fleet operator you'd get perhaps 10% discount, or more with a high value long term maintenace contract agreed at the same time. Bigger discounts will also be on offer when Boeing really need orders, of for unique "trend-setter" customers, but if they sell any aircraft at a loss, somebody else has to pay more to keep Boeing in business.
Actually, airlines placing large orders typically get 50% discounts, while most airlines get a discount of some sort. Like buying a new car, only mugs pay list price!
Here's a source quoting Ryanair getting a 53% discount on a previous large 737 order: http://globalnews.ca/news/411110/ryanair-places-big-order-to-buy-175-boeing-737s-but-at-hefty-bulk-discount/
Pricing on aircraft is highly variable. The price can go from anywhere between $60 million to $120 million depending on features. On one you have RyanAir's "the luggage is treated better than the passengers" air-borne cattle-cars. On the other, you have Emirates' "Even Caligula would think its too decadent" flying palaces.
@Crazy Operations Guy On the other, you have Emirates' "Even Caligula would think its too decadent" flying palaces.
"New for 2018 - Emirates First Class now offers...
- Complementary beverages
- Private lay-flat bed
- Horse Marriage
- Can choose up to 10 Economy Class passengers to be thrown to wild beasts in the cargo hold
- Cabin crew will worship you as an actual, living god
* Special offer during January - free stabbing as you exit the plane"
Don't fix...
Dad to hear of the number of accidents and fatalities but you have to wonder how many of those where human error rather than design flaws? In the same way that very popular cars have a high number of deaths involved with them does not make them inherently accident prone or unsafe.
Enquiring minds and all that
but you have to wonder how many of those where human error rather than design flaws?
Surely we already know for the accident reports that the vast majority were human error? Design flaws rarely cause a hull-loss accident without some serious additional human input in some area of flight control or maintenance.
There was also a rudder problem with a servo causing the rudder to go hard over at low speeds. This caused a couple of accidents and fatalities. The problem was around for a few years But could be negated by raising the minimum speeds in certain configurations.
Phil.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_rudder_issues
An interesting safety comparison. According to Ref. A, FedEx Express (the famous air cargo fleet) presently has 659 aircraft, has operated for about 45 years, and has had two (2) fatalities related to aircraft accidents. According to Ref. B, the founder of FedEx, has been involved in two (2) fatal car accidents. File under: just sayin'.
A. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FedEx_Express#Major_incidents_and_accidents
B. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_W._Smith#Forgery_indictment_and_car_accident
it would be perfectly possible to keep a Vulcan in flying condition,but parts are almost impossible to find
IIRC, the reason for retirement of XH558 was primarily that BAe, RR and Marshalls were no longer willing to act as the design authority for the aircraft. Without a design authority (or type approval arrangements), the CAA won't permit a civilian aircraft to fly. I suspect that all and any spares needed could have been found or made anew if the will was there, but I don't see any way round the DA question. Even if you tried to set yourself up as the DA, I suspect insurers would be very reluctant to provide insurance, and you'd be taking on huge responsibilities, obligations and potential liabilities in respect of a near-70 year old design concept.
It comes down to the exhausting of its design life. They had to rework the leading edge of the wing to give it another couple of years. How often do you rebuild to keep it going.
That's why no one was prepared to be retained as design authority. Too much paperwork, too much effort for too little recompense. Either the regulatory job is done properly, which would be uneconomic for the trust, or the risk is it drops out of the sky one day and fingers are pointed.
@Ledswinger,
"IIRC, the reason for retirement of XH558 was primarily that BAe, RR and Marshalls were no longer willing to act as the design authority for the aircraft."
That's basically the reason Concorde stopped flying too. Airbus needed the design engineers who kept Concorde flying to get the A380 project finished, and Air France were making a loss. DA withdrawal was presented as a fete acompli, leaving BA nowhere to go.
There's some major differences between the potential longevity of Concorde and the Vulcan. The former was built to last, had a relatively easy flying life, got baked bone dry every time it flew, and hot enough to anneal the airframe too. That added up to a corrosion-free airframe whose metal was improving with age. Given continuing support from the likes of RR and Airbus, there'd never have been a "worn out" reason to retire Concorde. Even the electronics was infinitely repairable - very little in the way of integrated circuits or chips AFAIK, so easily repaired with replacement transistors alone. When they weighed the airframes after the post-crash design changes, they were heavier than expected. One quick flight up to Mach2.0 burnt off all the moisture that had accumulated whilst they'd sat idle, and the airframes were back down to their expected weight.
The Vulcan in contrast was built for performance-at-almost-any-cost, had a harsh flying life in its later career (the RAF adopted low level flying - bumpy air down there), spent a lot of its time soaking up the damp British weather, and never got dried out. The result was metal that was vulnerable to corrosion and fatigue with a lot of high loadings. It was always going to wear out, and indeed that's basically what happened to poor old XH558 (plus engine life issues).
I think it somehow odd that the faster plane would last longer than the slower one. It's the opposite way round with cars...
It'll be interesting to see how the carbon fibre 787 and A350 lasts. CF in theory won't fatigue; so long as its not over stressed, it should last forever. They could become very long lived airframes.
Somebody that restores WWII aircraft told me a similar problems applies to USAF models.
The manufacturers are so worried that somebody will rebuild a B17, crash it into an airshow crowd and will sue Boeing - that they destroyed all the manuals/parts/tooling for vintage aircraft.
Ironically it is easy to get service manuals for WWII German aeroplanes
The problem with keeping XH558 flying is that by now she had many more hours on her than any other Vulcan had ever made. Any aircraft in service has problems, graded from minor expected easily fixed problems down to disastrous but completely unknown problems. The Design Authority basically has to make an assesment as to how many unknown potentially catastrophic problems exist in the airframe and mitigate any known or known potential problems. Due to XH558s lifespan and flight time the amount of unknowns starts climbing as there is no "comparable lifetime" airframes to make an assesment against and cross check measurements against one another. The B-52 can be kept in the air because there is a large pool of them to cross-check and reference. Same with other "old workhorse" planes like the A-10 or the DC-3. Keeping a unique, single example, complex plane like the Vulcan flying just started to take too much time and become too much liability for the design authorities. Added to that the skills needed to keep this sort of design flying started to die out within the companies as people retire or die. Modern aircraft are built differently and follow different rules and regulations requiring different skills and knowledge. It's tragic but thats the way it is.
The whole XH558 story is ending sadly. Apart from the farce of its final flight, the poor thing's now in storage and the visitor centre closed "pending an exciting new development" that... well let's face it, is pie in the sky at the moment.
The 737 is quite a plane though - a nearly empty one on a near-sea-level runway is an awesome airplane to take off in.
Yes over 50 years Boeing has refined the design - as they have for the still in production(?) 747. But 50 years before its first flight - this was cutting edge design with what appears to be winglets, asymetrically profiled engines and unpaved runway capability ... plus non-stop transatlantic range capability. Yes I admit the 737 and its predecessors were amazing progress but even its proposed replacements today use a very similar configuration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vickers_Vimy#/media/File:Vickers_Vimy.jpg
Oh and I'm not going to draw parallels with how music moved on to peak in the late 60's too ;-)
Actually, there are several new designs - but some of them are thought to be hardly acceptable by passengers (i.e. some flying wings ones, with no windows [no, not replace by Linux <G>]) or may lead to some safety issues (i.e. speed of evacuation). And most airports are anyway designed for the actual configurations, and different planes design would need different ways to access them.
The "flying tube" still works well, so no need to replace it soon - just improve it. The original 737 was not exactly identical to the later models. No winglets, different engines, etc.
Flying wing isn't for passengers really. Unless you put them into suspended animation (which, admittedly, would do wonders for space efficiency) or give them some really nice drugs, and lots of them.
( "After the barley sugar injections you won't care!" - Verrifast Plaine Co. LTD.)
Unless you're a hardcore roller coaster enthusiast, flying tube makes for a much, much more comfortable ride.
@Stuart 22
Yes over 50 years Boeing has refined the design - as they have for the still in production(?) 747. But 50 years before its first flight - this was cutting edge design with what appears to be winglets, asymetrically profiled engines and unpaved runway capability ... plus non-stop transatlantic range capability. Yes I admit the 737 and its predecessors were amazing progress but even its proposed replacements today use a very similar configuration.
I'm not sure if you're trolling, or just uninformed?
Winglets are a very recent addition.
Asymmetric engine nacelles come from the second generation where they were needed because of too small ground clearance (designed for turbojet engines and adapted to turbofans).
New 737 is no longer capable of operating on unpaved runways because of the engines hanging a bit too low.
Non-stop transatlantic range -- only a recent addition, not present with the first two generations.
The biggest advantage that 737 brought to the market was that it could be operated by a flight crew of two instead of three.
The Canadians have modded some with a a big cargo door in the front and a sliding partition wall with seats at the back. they're called the 737-Combi
These aircraft can easily and quickly be re-divided between different ratios of people (self loading frreight) and cargo (genuine freight). In addition to all the other 737 attributes this makes a great flying pickup truck for shifting goods and people into the far north.
While the 737 is now over 50 years old, it is still by far Boeing's most popular airplane. What's really mind blowing is that this one model, which has now been updated 3 times, will almost certainly remain in service for at least 100 years. Given past model lifespans, the MAX model will probably be sold for about 20 years, and be in service for 30 years after that. That is equivalent to a World War I airplane remaining in airline service to this day. Amazing.
Very much like Toyota Corolla then, more about the name than the actual product.
"The Toyota Corolla is a line of subcompact and compact cars manufactured by Toyota. Introduced in 1966, the Corolla was the best-selling car worldwide by 1974 and has been one of the best-selling cars in the world since then. In 1997, the Corolla became the best selling nameplate in the world, surpassing the Volkswagen Beetle.[1] Toyota reached the milestone of 40 million Corollas sold over eleven generations in July 2013.[2] The series has undergone several major redesigns."
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