By now, Boeing 737 MAX had pretty much smeared the reputation of Boeing. But we are not here to dig into that. There’s something a little more uplifting coming from the American aircraft maker over the last weekend.
The company’s new aircraft, 777X, has successful completed its first flight. The aircraft took off at Paine Field in Everett, Washington and made a total of 3 hours and 51 minutes flight over Washington state before landing at Seattle’s Boeing Field.
What’s exciting about this new 777X is, it combines the best of the 777 and 787 Dreamliner, i.e. wide body and long haul, with new technologies that makes it the largest and most fuel efficient twin-engine commercial jet.
One of the most notable aerospace tech is perhaps the folding wings, or winglets if you will. Like the 787 Dreamliner, the 777X has done away with the winglets in favor of rake wingtips which greatly improved the fuel efficiency.
However, 777X, being a huge aircraft that it is, would required equally larger and longer wings, and having longer wings will not fit into regular airport gates. This is where the folding wings come in. They fold up so it could fit regular gate, or at least those gates that could be fit a regular 777.
Fuel efficiency is not limited to the wing design. Boeing said the new GE9X engine is 10 percent more fuel efficient over its competition.
Moreover, the new Boeing 777X is 7 feet (2.13 meters) longer than the 777-300ER and thanks to the re-sculpted frames, it has a wider interior while maintaining the same external width. This will allow it to accommodate up to 426 passengers in a typical 2-class configuration more comfortably. Well, about that… it is only if the airlines want you to be comfortable. If you know what I mean?
Images: Boeing.
