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Boeing to Revamp 737 Design and Production

CHICAGO, // Newscape//, April 1, 2006. ex-

While hosting its “Around the World” evening reception at the annual conference of the International Society of Transport Aircraft Trading in Orlando, officials from the Boeing Corporation (NYSE:BA) quietly confirmed rumors that it would soon embark on yet another derivative of its venerable 737 aircraft series. The Chicago based manufacturer confirmed that it would incorporate much of the design and production technology under development for its twin aisle 787 Dreamliner design series into an updated model of the single aisle 737 platform. The announcement itself was remarkable for its lack of fanfare. “Quite frankly, this is an aircraft that we didn’t want to build.” One Boeing host said. He went on to explain that the company was quite content with its current 737 next generation production line and the ongoing development of the Dreamliner series, with both aircraft lines selling briskly.

“Many of our internal departments felt that our plates were full already. We are simply surrendering to a customer’s demand. This particular customer falls into the 800 pound gorilla category. The more we balked at building it, the more units the customer offered to buy until it we could resist no further. This is the type of customer that you strive to keep happy.”

According to Boeing sources, the updated aircraft will incorporate new wing, engine, and composite structures technology from the Dreamliner project as well as other elements of Boeing’s new e-Enabled air-transport system technology. This new Joint Boeing/Jeppesen division brings data and information together which is easily shared across the whole aviation spectrum through the use newly developed technologies such as the Boeing Electronic Flight Bag and the Boeing Conexxion satellite based broadband internet platform for both cockpit and cabin delivery. Another developing technology slated for the new series will be Boeing’s Virtual VFR technology which blends traditional ground based navigation resources, WAAS enabled GPS technology, infrared radar depictions, and digitally stored videography, into a heads up display of remarkable accuracy and detail.

“Our goal is to eliminate the question of having the runway in sight.” Said one member of the design team. “The heads up display is the key to allowing us to incorporate all of this new navigational technology into a cockpit that will still be instantly recognizable to all current generation 737 pilots. This is obviously essential to the governmental certification agencies in allowing this model to remain within the current certification standards. Certifying this aircraft as a 737 was the deal killer for our launch customer. Since the design launch was made, we’ve discovered many synergies between this project and the ongoing Dreamliner project. There are distinct advantages to adapting an existing platform over beginning with a clean slate and we believe that not only can we fly this airplane before the 787, but that the Dreamliner will fly sooner because of the inherent efficiencies of parallel design stages.

The Boeing 737 series is the most popular commercial aircraft of all time. The series recently delivered its 5,000th production unit and booked its 6,000th order. The newest derivative, known internally as the “K” series, is expected to be ready for the first delivery to the launch customer in early 2009.

//newscape// OPX Chicago, (net-3) 4.1.06 All rights reserved
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Dreamy Can you paste a link to this article? Thanks!
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Wonder if SWA would get into this?
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look at the date the article was published...
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