[Gay State Conservative]

Frankly, knowing what we know about all the weaknesses of the 737, no sane aircraft designer would want to “rip it off”.

Wikipedia states that more than 7000 B737's have been produced since introduction.Figures like that don't say "substandard product" to me.

[John Valentine]

See my post 30 above. Also, I never said that the 737 was or is a “substandard product”, so please don’t put words in my mouth.

Much of this thread has been ignorant people trashing Russian aviation - basically trashing the SJ-100, which is also far from a “substandard product”.

The best aircraft in the world will not survive being flown at speed into the side of a mountain.