Originally Posted by
rickair7777
They didn't know that there would be another generation of the 737. Actually most folks with industry awareness would have thought the safe money was on a clean-slate design next time around.
They didn’t know....I will grant you that. But even with the NG they should have lengthened the gear rather than flatten out the engine cowlings. At that point it would not have been too hard to make the gear a little taller.