by Gary R. » Sat Jan 01, 2005 1:34 pm
Could be. The basic airbus airframe is almost infinatley modifiable to fit whatever size or engine options are desired. Personally, I think Boeing is being crazy like a fox with this 7e7. From what I unserstand about it so far it will be tailorable to a wide variety of sizes and missions itself. The initial model will fall between a 737 and 767 more or less but they do have different sized versions in the plans that will allow the same basic airframe to dill the nitch of the 737/757 and 767. I believe but am not totally sure that the 7e7 cockpit layout will be similar to the 777. It would not suprise me if Boeing even has 4 engine designs of the 7e7 airframe on the drawing board that will eventually replace the current 747. One thing is for sure. Boeing is going to pay very close attention to the A380 project. I think in large part the success or failure of the A380 will determine the future of jumbos. I think Boeing should have kept on going with their sonic cruiser project though. I can see a lot of popilarity to economically shaving 2 or 3 hours off of some international flights. What would a .98-1.01 cruise speed mean to a JFK-Heathrow trip? I guesstimate it would be a 5 hour trip give or take. Not much slower than concorde despite that concorde could go twice as fast. After-all, a significant part of concorde's flight regime was sub'transonic in the first place. Boeing's proposed sonic cruiser would have been able to fly at it's transonic flight regime for most of a flight considering it would have been able to do it over land.
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