This Date in Aviation History: February 16 - February 19

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 02/19/2019 at 12:35 • Filed to: wingspan, Planelopnik, TDIAH

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Welcome to This Date in Aviation History , getting of you caught up on milestones, important historical events and people in aviation from February 16 through February 19.

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A Martin PBM-3 Mariner in flight ca 1942 (US Navy)

February 18, 1939 – The first flight of the Martin PBM Mariner. From the earliest days of the airplane, the US Navy saw the floatplane and flying boat as vital tools for maritime surveillance, search and rescue, and defense against submarines. (Generally, seaplane is a generic term for a plane that can operate from water. A floatplane is a traditional airplane fitted with floats, while a flying boat is built with a ship-like hull). With America’s entry into the truly global conflict of WWII, the Navy now had vast reaches of ocean to cover, particularly in the Pacific, a duty that was well-suited to far-ranging flying boats. The !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! had a long history of building large aircraft, and their work with flying boats began with the PM-1, a biplane flying boat they produced for the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . They followed that with production of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! flying boat that had originally been designed by Consolidated, who called it the P2Y. But the P3M’s design still hearkened back to an earlier era with its fabric-covered wing and parasol design, and Martin knew that there was considerable room for improvement to bring the large flying boat into a more modern era.

Martin XPBM-1, showing the retractable floats and flat tail (US Navy)

Development of the Mariner began in 1937 with the Model 162, which was intended both as a replacement for the P3M and as a complement to the smaller !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Where earlier flying boats had employed the parasol wing to keep the engines clear of ocean spray, Martin designed the Mariner with a distinctive !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! to raise the engines higher above the water while still enjoying the benefits of the more modern !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . A matching dihedral tail replaced the original flat tail to help reduce tail flutter. To reduce aerodynamic drag during flight, the first Mariners were fitted with retractable wing floats, though later production aircraft reverted to fixed floats, and the final variant, the PBM-5A, was fitted with a retractable undercarriage, making it a true amphibian. Power for the large flying boat came from a pair of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! radial engines which gave the Mariner a maximum speed of 210 mph and a range of 2,240 miles. The giant flying boat bristled with eight Browning .50 caliber machine guns for defense against enemy fighters, and it could carry up to 4,000 pounds of bombs or depth charges or a pair of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! for attacking surface targets.

A Mariner performs a rocket-assisted takeoff (US Navy)

A Mariner performs a rocket-assisted takeoffThe Mariner entered service with the Navy on September 1, 1940, where its primary mission was performing !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in the Atlantic Ocean from bases in the US and Iceland. Following the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! on Pearl Harbor and America’s entry into WWII, Mariners performed anti-submarine patrols in the Atlantic and were credited with sinking 10 German U-boats. In the Pacific, PBMs operated from land bases in Saipan, Okinawa, Iwo Jima, and also flew from seaplane tenders operating as floating bases. There they supported Marine landings and carried out reconnaissance and search and open ocean rescue missions, called Dumbo Missions.

A PBM-5 Mariner in flight in 1945. Note the radar mounted atop the fuselage behind the cockpit. The addition of the radar made the Mariner a more effective submarine hunter. (US Navy)

The end of WWII did not mean the end of the Mariner’s service. During the Korean War, Mariner crews performed patrol missions along the Korean Coast, and flying boat became the primary long-range search and rescue aircraft for the US Coast Guard. The Mariner was also exported to Britain (who eventually transferred their aircraft to Australia), and the Netherlands, where the Royal Netherlands Navy operated them in Netherlands New Guinea. When production of the Mariner ceased in 1949, Martin had built a total of 1,366 PBMs, and its duties were eventually taken over by the more advanced !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which entered service in 1952.

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(Tim Shaffer)

February 19, 1982 – The first flight of the Boeing 757. For whatever reason, February is a very busy month in the history of the Boeing Company. Many of their most iconic aircraft took their maiden flight in the second month of the year, and the list includes the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , one of the world’s first truly modern airliners, the tri-jet !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which was the world’s first wide body, and the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , the largest 747 ever built and the longest commercial airliner in the world. Completing that list of February first flights (though not chronologically) is the 757, Boeing’s largest single-aisle airliner.

By the early 1970s, Boeing had to decide what to do with the 727. The tri-jet had become Boeing’s biggest seller but, with the increasing popularity of air travel, air carriers were now looking for an airliner with more seats, but also one that didn’t sacrifice the 727's ability to operate from shorter runways at smaller airports. At first, Boeing considered revamping the 727, stretching it further than the already-lengthened 727-200, or developing an entirely new airplane, dubbed the 7N7 at the time. Although it would have been cheaper to modify the established 727, airlines were showing greater interest in aircraft equipped with more efficient !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! which provided significant fuel savings over the older !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! that drove the 727. Eventually, with firm commitments from Eastern Air Lines and British Airways, Boeing decided to go ahead with the new airliner in 1978.

For the first time, a Boeing airliner would be powered by engines produced outside the US, as Eastern and British Airways both opted for the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! turbofan. Later, engine production returned to the US when Delta signed on with the 757 and selected Pratt & Whitney engines. Since the 757 was being developed alongside the widebody !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , both jets shared common elements, such as identical two-person flight decks with computerized glass cockpits, and engine management systems which rendered the flight engineer’s position obsolete. By sharing the cockpit designs between the two airliners, pilots who were rated on the 757 could also be qualified to fly the 767, and vice versa. Similar to the process in place at Boeing’s chief competitor !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , Boeing farmed out about half of the aircraft’s components to manufacturers across the US, and final assembly took place at Boeing’s facility in Renton, Washington.

The prototype rolled out on January 13, 1982, and the 757 took its maiden flight one week ahead of schedule. Months of testing following, and the 757 performed better than expected. The aircraft had come out 3,600 pounds lighter than projected, and the Rolls-Royce engines burned 3% less fuel than expected, resulting in an 80% improvement in fuel consumption over the 727. Eastern Air Lines made the first commercial flight on January 1, 1983, with British Airways following a month later. Though sales of the 757 were sluggish throughout the 1980s, development of the 757 continued, first with the 757-200PF freighter, followed by the 757-300, a stretched version that can accommodate as many as 295 passengers in a single class configuration, making it the longest single-aisle twin-jet ever produced. The 757 has proven to be a useful and powerful workhorse and, in 1991, in a display of the 757's short field prowess, and in a testament to the power of modern jet engines, a 757 took off from the Gonggar Airport in Tibet at an elevation of 11,621 feet, circled and landed safely, all while flying on a single engine. The 757 has also proven popular as a flying testbed, and the US Air Force has adopted the airliner as the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , a VIP aircraft that, among other duties, is used to transport the Vice President of the United States.

With the arrival of the latest versions of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , Boeing decided to shutter the 757 production line in 2005 after building 1,050 aircraft. However, the cyclical nature of airliner demand has come back around, and Boeing now finds itself lacking any offerings in the size and range of the 757, and under intense competition from Airbus with their !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Boeing revealed plans in June of 2017 for their yet-to-be named “new midsize airplane,” or NMA, which would fill the gap left by the 757 and likely be named the 797. That aircraft, though, is still at least eight years away, and Boeing has !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! an official announcement about the airliner until 2020.

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Short Takeoff

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(US Navy)

February 16-17, 1945 – US Navy Task Force 58 conducts the first carrier-based bombing of Japan since the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! of 1942. From January 1944 through the end of the Pacific War in August 1945, Task Force 58 was the main strike force of the US Navy in operations against the Japanese. Flying 2,761 sorties, aircraft from eleven fleet aircraft carriers and five light aircraft carriers attacked targets in the Japanese capital city of Tokyo and in Tokyo Bay, shooting down 341 Japanese planes and destroying a further 190 on the ground. Several ships were sunk in the bay, and the aircraft also damaged a aircraft and aircraft engine factory. The US lost 60 aircraft in combat, plus a further 28 to non-combat causes.

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(US Navy)

February 16, 1944 – The first flight of the Curtiss SC Seahawk, a scout seaplane developed by Curtiss to replace the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The seaplanes were armed with two .50 caliber machine guns as well as hardpoints for bombs, and accommodation was made for a single stretcher to be carried behind the pilot. Even before the prototypes took their maiden flight, the US Navy ordered 500 aircraft. Seahawks were delivered to overseas units with regular landing gear, then had the floats fitted in the field. The Seahawk’s long development meant that it didn’t enter service until 1944, and didn’t see action until June 1945, just two months before the end of the war. The Seahawk was quickly replaced by helicopter scouts, and no examples remain today.

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Authors unknown)

February 17, 1864 – The birth of Hilda Beatrice Hewlett who, in 1911, became the first British woman to earn a pilot license. After attending her first aviation meeting at Blackpool in 1909, Hewlett adopted the pseudonym “Grace Bird” and began studying aeronautics, and later opened a flying school at the Brooklands racing circuit with business partner !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Among her pupils was !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , founder of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Hewlett also taught her son to fly, and he went on to a distinguished career in the military and was awarded the Distinguished Service Order in 1915. The company she formed with Blondeau began building Farman, Caudron and Hanriot aircraft, eventually producing more than 800 aircraft and employing 700 workers. Hewlett died in 1943.

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February 18, 2010 – Andrew Joseph Stack, III crashes his airplane into IRS offices in Austin, Texas. Following a long-running dispute with the IRS, and currently undergoing an audit over the IRS’s claims that he failed to report income, Stack wrote a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , set fire to his home, and drove to the Georgetown Municipal Airport north of Austin. From there he took off in his !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which investigators believe may have been loaded with drums of fuel, and crashed the plane into the Echelon I building in north Austin which contained an IRS office with 190 employees. The crash killed Stack and one IRS employee, Vernon Hunter, and injured 13 others, two seriously. The attack cost the IRS nearly $40 million dollars to upgrade security at offices around the country, and led to debate over taxpayer rights and tax protest policies. The Echelon I building was repaired by November 2011.

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(Author unknown)

February 18, 1981 – The death of Jack Northrop, an American industrialist and aircraft designer who founded the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in 1939. Born in 1895, Northrop is perhaps best known for his work on flying wing aircraft, designing the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! bombers for the US Air Force. Though his flying wing designs were never adopted, Northrop’s concepts were eventually vindicated with the development of the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! flying wing stealth bomber, which first flew in July 1989. Following the failure of the YB-49, a despondent Northrop took almost no part in his company. But shortly before his death, B-2 designers allowed him to see the top secret plans and hold a scale model of the new bomber. Northrop, ill and unable to speak, reportedly wrote, “Now I know why God has kept me alive for 25 years.”

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(NASA)

February 18, 1977 – The first flight of the Space Shuttle Enterprise atop the Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA). In this, the first of five “captive-inactive” flights, the Shuttle was unmanned, and engineers tested the flight characteristics of the mated aircraft. The rear of the Shuttle was covered with an aerodynamic tail cone to reduce the effects of drag and turbulence on the SCA’s horizontal stabilizer, which was fitted with tip fins for added stability. The !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! used as the first SCA was originally delivered to American Airlines in 1970 before being purchased by NASA for use in wake vortex studies, and it would eventually receive the official white and blue NASA livery. NASA operated two SCAs to transport the Shuttle from landing sites back to the Kennedy Space Center for their next launch. Following the end of the Shuttle program, SCA N911A was used for spare parts to support the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) and its Boeing 747SP. It was eventually placed on display in Palmdale, California. N905NA (shown above) was used to transport the retired Shuttles to locations around the country before being placed on display at Space Center Houston with the mockup Shuttle !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! on its back.

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(UK Government)

February 18, 1944 – The Royal Air Force carries out Operation Jericho, an audacious, low-level mission flown by the RAF into German-occupied France in an effort to free prisoners of war from Amiens Prison by using bombs to breach the walls. Many of the prisoners held there were members of the French Resistance or political prisoners, along with two Allied intelligence officers. Eighteen RAF !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! bombers (only nine reached the target), escorted by 14 !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , took off from Hunsdon Airfield in southeast England and, despite terrible weather, succeeded in breaching the walls of the prison. Of the 717 prisoners, 37 were killed in the raid, and 74 were wounded, but 258 escaped, including 79 Resistance fighters, though two-thirds of the escapees were soon recaptured. Three Mosquitos and two Typhoons were lost, with three pilots killed and three captured. As a reprisal for the raid, the Nazis executed 260 prisoners, and there remains controversy over the necessity of the mission.

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(Tim Shaffer)

February 19, 2002 – The first flight of the Embraer E170, a single-aisle, twin-engined regional airliner produced by Brazilian firm !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and the first of the company’s !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! family of commercial and business airliners. Launched at the Paris Air Show in 1999, the E170 entered service in 2002 and has been one of the more successful undertakings by Embraer. The E170 features four-abreast seating for up to 78 passengers in a single-class configuration, and its double-bubble fuselage offers enough headroom for passengers to stand in the aisle. A total of 699 E170s, along with its slightly longer E175 variant, have been produced.

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February 19, 1965 – The first flight of the Cessna 188, the first in a family of agricultural aircraft that includes the AGwagon, AGpickup, AGtruck, AGhusky, and AGcarryall. Cessna began working on an agricultural aircraft in the 1960s, and borrowed heavily from their !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! in its design. The single-seat 188 is constructed primarily of aluminum with a strut-braced wing and employs a fiberglass hopper for agricultural chemicals. The series has proven to be wildly successful, and nearly 4,000 AG planes were constructed between 1966-1983. In addition to its agricultural duties, the 188 also serves as a glider and sailplane tug, and is often used to pull advertising banners.

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(US Army)

February 19, 1936 – The death of William “Billy” Mitchell. Born December 29, 1879 in France, Mitchell grew up in Wisconsin joined the US Army in 1898 as an infantryman before transferring to the Signal Corps. By the end of WWI, he had risen to command all American air combat units in France and, following the war, Mitchell was a major and vociferous proponent of air power and. In 1921, he organized a landmark demonstration of the effectiveness of air power by using bombers to sink the captured German battleship !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , though throughout the orchestrated attacks the Ostfriesland never mounted any defense. As a vehement proponent of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , Mitchell espoused the theories of Italian general !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , who advocated that bombers alone would be capable of winning a war by breaking the morale of an enemy’s civilian population. Mitchell’s views had a profound influence on American strategic bombing practices during WWII. He resigned from the Army in 1926 rather than face a court martial for accusing senior commanders of incompetence, though he continued to preach about the power of military aviation, albeit to a less influential audience. Mitchell succumbed to influenza and other ailments at his home in Virginia at age 56.

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If you enjoy these Aviation History posts, please let me know in the comments. And if you missed any of the past articles, you can find them all at !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . You can also find more stories about aviation, aviators and airplane oddities at !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

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CarsofFortLangley - Oppo Forever > ttyymmnn 02/19/2019 at 12:55

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Make flying boats great again

cbell04 > ttyymmnn 02/19/2019 at 12:58

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Wow about Jericho . Always learning from these great post and it hit right when I needed to kill some time! 

facw > ttyymmnn 02/19/2019 at 13:47

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a seaplane is a traditional airplane fitted with both floats and landing gear, making it amphibious, while a flying boat is built with a ship-like holl and can only operate from the surface of the water

Hmm, I would only make the hull shape distinction, and the fact the hull rides directly on the water (and I’d spell “hull” right :P)

I’d certainly classify the Catalina or Be-200 as flying boats, even though they are both amphibious.

I’d say seaplanes are the overarching category which would be divided into flying boats and floatplanes.

Maybe I’m wrong though.

facw > ttyymmnn 02/19/2019 at 13:56

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The stunning 757 Hekla Aurora flown by Icelandair departs for Helsinki from Dallas-Fort Worth 

Hmm, presumably stopping at Keflavik? Helsinki is a bit too far, and also a strange place for Icelandair to fly direct to from the US.

ttyymmnn > facw 02/19/2019 at 14:15

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No, I think that your definition is better than mine. I added that explanation this time around, or tried to expand on it. I like the way you worded it.

The secret to writing is rewriting, and there are no good authors without good editors.

Holl. 

AfromanGTO > ttyymmnn 02/19/2019 at 14:17

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So much good information today!

Articles about the Mariner and Seahawk makes for a good day.

Sadly I couldn’t find a video of the Mariner using jet assisted take off.

I wish seaplanes were still popular.

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > ttyymmnn 02/19/2019 at 14:19

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... Boeing now finds itself lacking any offerings in the size and rage   range of the 757...

When situations like this come up I always wonder why companies aren’t able to restart production on a discontinued product . I’m sure Boeing still has all the engineering documents, and there isn’t anything particularly unique about the 757. Sure, they’d need to come up with some new tooling, but that is the same problem faced starting production of anything.

ttyymmnn > facw 02/19/2019 at 14:19

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I made a post on the day I took that photo, and indicated that it was bound for Reykjavik. which makes a lot more sense. No idea where Helsinki came from, except that I keep thinking Hekla Aurora is flying for Finnair.

ttyymmnn > cbell04 02/19/2019 at 14:23

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Every Tuesday and Friday at 12:35 ET! Thanks for reading.

For Sweden > ttyymmnn 02/19/2019 at 14:24

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Never Forgive

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Never Forget

ttyymmnn > AfromanGTO 02/19/2019 at 14:32

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While there are certainly still seaplanes and flying boats today , their popularity began to wane at the end of WWII because advances in infrastructure (long land-based runways) and increased aircraft range made them less attractive to airlines . 

ttyymmnn > You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much 02/19/2019 at 14:46

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While they could probably restart production, we’re talking about a 35-year-old design, and it would be better to incorporate more modern materials, wing designs, etc. And what really pushes decisions like that are market forces, and Boeing is loath to put time and effort into such an airplane without an accurate reading of the tea leaves, if that’s even possible. There has been noise coming out of Boeing for years about the NMA, what would likely be dubbed the 797. Problem is, Airbus, with the A321, has a near monopoly on that segment and shows no sign of letting it go. It would be very difficult to break into that game, a single-aisle aircraft would bite into 737 sales, and building a twin-aisle aircraft could cannibalize sales of the 787. While letting the 757 go, and focusing all their efforts on stretching the 737 to its capacity, I think Boeing has missed out badly on this segment, and simply building a new plane won’t necessarily help. I wouldn’t want to be in the Boeing boardroom right now. As it is, they have put off the decision on the NMA until next year, perhaps to give them more time to predict the future of the industry. Good luck.

You might find this piece interesting.

http://www.askthepilot.com/757-v-737/

user314 > You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much 02/19/2019 at 14:49

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I was just looking this up for another site, so it’s not exactly apples-to-apples, but for example, if the USAF wanted to restart the F-22 production line , it would cost somewhere north of ten billion dollars just to rebuild the line and associated tooling, plus restart the lines for the radar and engines.   This is in addition to the $ 206-$ 230 million per plane.

As it is, Boeing will decide in the next year or so whether it will launch its NMA/797  to replace the 757 and 767.

ttyymmnn > You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much 02/19/2019 at 14:52

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This is a good discussion, too.

ttyymmnn > user314 02/19/2019 at 14:54

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Opinion: Why Boeing’s NMA Is Not A Done Deal

Ode to the 757

user314 > ttyymmnn 02/19/2019 at 15:08

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Aviation Leak requires a subscription  .

Still, I agree that the NMA is still a l oooong way off yet, and may never happen at all. 

ttyymmnn > user314 02/19/2019 at 15:19

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Subscription is free. You just gotta give them an email @ and lie about being in the industry.

ttyymmnn > user314 02/19/2019 at 15:47

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It’s interesting. I can share the text with you if you want to give me an email. I just can’t c/p the whole thing here. You can reach me at my screen name at gee mail.

user314 > facw 02/19/2019 at 15:54

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FWIW, Wiki makes the following distinctions:

The word “seaplane” is used to describe two types of air/water vehicles: the floatplane and the flying boat.

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A floatplane has slender pontoons , or floats, mounted under the fuselage . Two floats are common, but other configurations are possible. Only the floats of a floatplane normally come into contact with water. The fuselage remains above water. Some small land aircraft can be modified to become float planes, and in general, floatplanes are small aircraft. Floatplanes are limited by their inability to handle wave heights typically greater than 12 inches (0.31 m). These floats add to the empty weight of the airplane and to the drag coefficient , resulting in reduced payload capacity, slower rate of climb, and slower cruise speed.

In a flying boat , the main source of buoyancy is the fuselage, which acts like a ship’s hull in the water because the fuselage’s underside has been hydrodynamically shaped to allow water to flow around it. Most flying boats have small floats mounted on their wings to keep them stable. Not all small seaplanes have been floatplanes, but most large seaplanes have been flying boats, with their great weight supported by their hulls .

As such, t he Cat is a flying boat, but the Altair is considered a ‘phib.

And we’re not even getting into ekranoplans ...

user314 > ttyymmnn 02/19/2019 at 15:55

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That’s okay, I’m going to sign up later tonight. 

AfromanGTO > ttyymmnn 02/19/2019 at 16:19

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The old Miami Seaplane base is parallel to the MacArthur causeway. There is no sign or anything going over near it sadly. Just some cargo containers in the old parking lot. I found out there is a large seaplane festival yearly in the Orlando area. I need to get a good camera and go to it next time.

ttyymmnn > AfromanGTO 02/19/2019 at 16:23

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https://www.messynessychic.com/2014/04/24/all-aboard-the-flying-yacht-circa-1950/

AfromanGTO > ttyymmnn 02/19/2019 at 16:28

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It is at the end of next month! I have to go now I have time to prepare!

https://www.tavares.org/1062/Seaplane-A-Palooza-Fly-In

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > ttyymmnn 02/20/2019 at 09:17

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That was an interesting read, and pretty much aligns with the experience I’ve had riding on 737's and 757's. A few years ago we went to St. Thomas, and coming back flew a 757 out of there. That thing took off like a rocket, especially compared to the 737's we flew on other legs of the trip.

I think Boeing screwed this up 40 years ago when they decided to update the 737 to accommodate high bypass engines with the -300 . They had an airframe that was designed for a different era, but rather than go design a new airframe to accommodate modern engines they decided to go the other way and shoehorn modern engines onto an airframe that was never designed for them. It was clearly faster and cheaper to do that than design a new airframe, but by going that way it cost them. Then they really screwed the pooch and doubled down on their mistake   when they went all in on the 737NG in the mid 90's. Having to squish your engines to fit under the wings is bad enough, but then they lengthen the fuselage too. Now you’ve got a plane with such short landing gear and such a long fuselage that every take off and landing it’s on the verge of a tail strike with the longer models.

At some point Boeing needs to realize the 737 doesn’t have anything left in the tank and they need to replace it with an airframe that can accommodate the latest and greatest large diameter engines. Otherwise they’ll end up trying to sell the 737 New Next Gen Canberra Signature Edition.

You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much > user314 02/20/2019 at 09:22

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The F-22 in particular ( and military aircraft in general) is definitely a different animal when it comes to restarting production. The Raptor has some very large titanium forgings in it that only one or two companies in the U.S. have the capability of making. T he tooling for those forgings were intentionally destroyed to prevent any more from being made.  IIRC they also destroyed some of the engineering documentation for some of the processes to make things even more difficult for anyone to attempt to steal the design and replicate it.

user314 > You can tell a Finn but you can't tell him much 02/20/2019 at 09:55

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Personally, I’m waiting for the 737 TRD Special Edition.