Some of the posts in this thread are hilarious! I'm not going to get into it, but as everyone's said, it's up to the customer to announce orders (or allow Boeing to announce them). They paid for it, it's their's to do what they want with. 60-some firm orders in 6 months for a plane that is promising many revolutionary features (a.k.a. never-been-done) is pretty impressive IMO. Same goes for the A380, it has a respectable order book for a never-been-done aircraft.

NYC777: Sorry if i have hurt your feelings or perhaps even made you cry.      

Rj111: Ahh what an interesting thought!!! I never thought that an airline would want to wait to announce an airplane purchase until they've signed the contract or at least an LOI. Wow you're sooooo smart!!!!!!

The "interesting" thing requires a little more detective work than you have displayed. Not much, just a little more.  

When you say something doesn't add up, what exactly are you calculating?

The feeling that something doesnt add up is just my perception and opinion, and nothing you say is gonna make me change my mind and vice-versa. So lets just leave it and not get in a big argument, my opinion is a pretty trivial thing.


[Edited 2004-09-24 19:28:26]

NYC777: Sorry if i have hurt your feelings or perhaps even made you cry.

Hey dude, apology accepted!!!  

Adria,

Now you are tripping over your own words. A while earlier you stated that the Sonic Cruiser was some sort of publicity stunt that existed only as a concept and now you seem to believe that Boeing collected deposits for the Sonic Cruiser and is apparently using a similar tactic with the 7E7.

In reply 39 I explained why Boeing cannot make false statements about cash deposts and future revenue for a "publicity stunt." Lucifer addressed the same point in 45.

Before you repeat this accusation of publicity stunt again, why don't you point how we are wrong in 39 and 45?

"Everyone that knows something about aerodynamics knew that this project is impossible(in terms of economics due to the high Mach speed)."

Adria, everyone knows Boeing milked the Sonic Cruiser's publicity value to the max, though unlike you, I believe it was an actual initiative to develop a new airplane. But I'd like you to quantify this comment:

"Everyone that knows something about aerodynamics knew that this project is impossible(in terms of economics due to the high Mach speed)."

IMPOSSIBLE? The transonic airliner concept has been around a long time, at least since the early 1970s. The April 1972 issue of Popular Science featured a detailed article by the late Dr. Werner Von Braun about a near Mach 1 airliner using the area-rule fuselage concept developed by NASA's Dr. Richard Whitcomb; the center of the fuselage was pinched inward, like a Coca Cola bottle. Aviation Week magazine followed this up with a more detailed article later that year. Both articles related that the area-ruling made this quite feasible and the next evolutionary step to higher speed without undue economics penalty, as with SSTs. The airlines didn't embrace it because the pinched fuselage made the airplane hard to stretch or design the interior. With the Sonic Cruiser, Boeing found another way of doing 'area-ruling' without the penalty of an inconsistent cross-section width. By moving the wing to the aft secton of the fuselage, they let the natural rearward tapering of the fuselage handle it. For potential customer, Continental, even the 15 to 20% speed bump could translate to higher yields, owing to being able to schedule another flight daily on some routes, as I recall Gordon Bethune saying when the Sonic Cruiser was offered. Of course, not enough airlines were confident of this, particularly in the debt-ridden aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. So, the Sonic Cruiser's parallel design-study concept, 'Project Yellowstone', which used similar engine and other technology without the advanced, higher speed economics, replaced the Cruiser in Boeing's focus as the airlines cried for more fuel savings. The Sonic Cruiser was said by Boeing to be as economical as a 767 but that wasn't good enough for the airlines, they needed better. Prior to the 9/11 recession, however, a fair number of carriers had looked at the Cruiser, some like Continental and Virgin, were publicly favorable about its prospects. It seemed perfectly feasible, it just didn't deliver the increased fuel-savings NOW demanded by the industry.

God, you're an incorrigible cynic!  

Whoever believes Sonic Cruiser was not "real", refer to "Flightpath. The International Journal of Commercial Aviation." by AIRtime Publishing, vol. 1. See what a "publicity stunt" it really was.

Whoever believes Sonic Cruiser was not "real", refer to "Flightpath. The International Journal of Commercial Aviation." by AIRtime Publishing, vol. 1. See what a "publicity stunt" it really was.


Remember this?

View Large View Medium

Photo © Alex Kislitski


A lot of the data gained from the Tu-144 program Boeing and NASA undertook with Tupolev went into the Sonic Cruiser program. So no, it wasn't just a publicity exercise.

A great deal of transonic and supersonic flying data was generated with that aircraft, and it still has the Boeing logo on the fuselage.

AA has deposits on 7E7's? I don't buy it--where do they have the money? THey might have 2 billion or whatever in cash, but they also have 22 billion in debt they aren't paying on at all, given their current losses.

You buy 7E7's if you're expanding--AA isn't expanding anytime soon. In fact, of the majors, it seems like only NW and CO would order 7E7's --both of them have shown strong focus on their international flights and have seemingly shrugged off (or matched offers) on domestic competition from the LCC's.

-Jeff

Three US carriers will account for 90 of the orders.


Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

I would quite agree with Rparker537 in reply 27 if he is speaking about internal negotiations with the carriers unions/employees. This round of talks include the most drastic cuts in history for employees and I can tell you first hand that they and the unions would scream bloody murder if they gave up a bunch after the company bought a bunch of aircraft. This would happen dispite how much the owners said the plane would save in the long run. If would make supposedly life (bankruptcy) threatening negotiations near impossible.

Since when were airlines and/or the labor unions associated with them paragons of rational decision making?

Update on 7E7 sales progress.

Interesting material from a Chinese source: ". . .order for the 7E7 is very close but has been reduced from an earlier figure of up to 90 aircraft to around 65. "

http://www.atwonline.com/indexfull.cfm?newsid=4622

Anyone who thinks a corporation like Boeing would stake it's rep on a publicity stunt, and not have this lined up, needs to have their sanity checked.

Don't talk nonsense, Boeing wrote the book on publicity stunts. Boeing told everyone they had all sorts of interest in the Sonic Cruiser and all along they had no intention of building it. It was a publicity stunt to upstage Airbus as it launced the A380. Also, what would you call the barrel role of the 707 prototype if not a publicity stunt! Another example was all those beautiful artists impressions of the 7E7 with the sharkfin tail etc. I bet it won't look anything like that when they eventually build it.

GU

Gearup,

You really ought to take your own advice about not talking nonsense. Boeing actually did shop the Sonic Cruiser around and the began design work on it. They stopped after they could not drum up enough business realizing that airlines these days valued cost effiency over speed. The timing of the announcement was certainly chosen to screw with Airbus but that is what competitors do. Go look up the reference post in reply 55 if you stand behind what you say. Then go look up the Airbus answer to the Sonic Cruiser...I don't think that ever left the artist's conception stage.

I am not sure what barrel role of the 707 has to do with anything. The pilot got in trouble for it.

Boeing cannot make up phantom orders/deposits for the 7E7 for a "publicity stunt." They would face massive civil liability from shareholders, an SEC investigation, and possible criminal prosecution if there was an intent to affect share price.

Sorry for possibly asking stupid - when I look at the Boeing orders 2004 I do see just 2 airlines having placed orders for the 7E7 so far. Lists of earlier years do not show the 7E7.
http://active.boeing.com/commercial/orders/index.cfm

For me only firm orders are a base for developing/building an aircraft. Intended purchases don't count, right? Also options can be cancelled, right?

There are 50+2 orders mentioned. No orders from U.S. airlines yet. Is there no interest from these carriers? Usually it was a carrier from the U.S. to be the "Launch Carrier" for a new Boeing aircrafttype.

So my possibly stupid question now: why has no U.S.airline placed a firm order yet for the 7E7? Just due to the general financial/economical bad situation or is it lack of trust/confidence in the new 7E7 or what is the reason?

Thanks
=TW741=

The 7E7 was offered for sale only starting this year. It takes time to present and negotiate contracts for new aircrafts. Boeing won't announce the orders until it get the okay from the purchasing carriers. US carriers haven't put in orders because very few if any are in a financial position to place orders.

US airlines have said they would like to order the plane but cannot due to the current state of their finances.

Gearaup, how long have you been on the Airbus payroll for being a mole inside Boeing?

You make it sound like you know what's going on inside Boeing. Don't flatter yourself. You don't, and neither do I. But if you REALLY believe this a publicity stunt, you have absolutely no concept or graps of business.