737 as popular as ever (Spirit workers to celebrate 5,000th fuselage)

The Wichita Eagle ^ | Posted on Sun, Dec. 11, 2005 | Reach Molly McMillin

[Central Scrutiniser]

It looks like its been made with bondo!

I used to have to walk beneath the wing of a parked 720B (which is still flying for Honeywell as an engine test bed) to get to the crew bus, it was a well worn PA bird. Rivet city, not pretty up close!

[conservative in nyc]

A319s are smaller and generally don't have transcon range problems - it's a smaller plane.

JetBlue has problems with its Burbank-JFK flights because Burbank's runway is relatively short. So they limit the number of passengers on those planes. Some of their A320 transcons need to make stops if the weather is bad at their destination or headwinds are fierce, but I don't think it's as common as some think.

[Central Scrutiniser]

I'd like to see them do it out of SNA.

It still amazes me that Aloha does Hawaii flights out of there and that tiny runway.

We start 757 service to Honolulu and Maui on Friday, finally got our planes ETOPS certified. Probably be a while till I can find an empty flight though.

[Paleo Conservative]

I used to have to walk beneath the wing of a parked 720B (which is still flying for Honeywell as an engine test bed) to get to the crew bus, it was a well worn PA bird. Rivet city, not pretty up close!

Is that the one with the 5th engine mounted behind the cockpit?

http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=honeywell+Boeing+720&btnG=Search

[Central Scrutiniser]

Yep, I saw it flying a few weeks back, great to see that in the air!

[Central Scrutiniser]

One website said it was a Northwest plane, but it had a PA tail number, who knows?

[Prophet in the wilderness]

I thought that Boeing celebrated the 6,000 th airframe of the 737? not 5,000,, unless that was a typo.

[Prophet in the wilderness]

To bad they can't put the first 737 at the AIR& SPACE museum or any other indoors museum to keep it out of the weather, just like they did with the original DASH-80.
When Boeing was developing and building the 777, they actually used the prototype 747 for a flying testbed of the first P&W engine that first went on the 777.
Needless to say on one of those test, the 777 engine backfired ( engine surge ) from continual testing and abuse from testing.
I saw on Airliners.net that someone showed pictures of the original 747 prototype, and it was just sitting in the desert, and some of the paint on it was just fading away ( a sad sight to see ) Boeing gave it to some air museum, but, it looks like they are not taking care of it.
I just wish they had room at the AIR&SPACE museum in Washington D.C. to keep these great airplanes.
I know the AIR&SPACE museum would take good care of these planes.

[Prophet in the wilderness]

I was wondering something ?
How come they can't reuse the aluminum from old airplanes, melt down the old aluminum and reuse it ?
I know they use aluminum from old airplanes for other uses, but, I am not sure they use old aluminum from old airplanes for new airplanes.,,,,,,,,, but,, then again ? if they are going to use composites, then, that is a mute point then.

[Prophet in the wilderness]

I know the prototype of the 707 is there, the DASH-80, the very same plane in that picture that TEX JOHNSON did that barrel roll in.

[Prophet in the wilderness]

I was on a 757 once, loved the flight, comfortable airplane ( at least in my opinion ) to bad Boeing has or already is going to stop production on the 757.

[truemiester]

Only white knuckles I ever had in a 737 were actually in a T-43 in the mid 80's, flying out of old Mather AFB with the 452 FTS. DRs and Cele were stressfull but I never worried about the airframe!

[Prophet in the wilderness]

( http://www.flightlevel350.com/viewer.php?id=4595 )

( http://www.flightlevel350.com/viewer.php?id=4592 )

( http://www.flightlevel350.com/viewer.php?id=4583 )

( http://www.flightlevel350.com/viewer.php?id=4457 )

There you go, the 757 taking off for your viewing pleasure.

[Prophet in the wilderness]

http://www.flightlevel350.com/viewer.php?id=3821

[Prophet in the wilderness]

Boeing did some modifications to the rudder and tail of the 737.
They increased the height of the of the rudder and vertical stabilizer of the 737, and re-engineerd the rudder hydraulic actuators.

[Fred Hayek]

"If the country ever needs another medium bomber or cruise missile platform, the 737 would be just the ticket."

Boeing is now offering a maritime patrol variant of the 737. I just wonder if it can loiter like a P-3 Orion (descendant of another airliner, the Electra, although nowhere near as successful as the 737. Same goes for the Nimrod/Comet). Just add a weapons bay, a sonobouy dispenser, MAD boom, surface search radar, and load the passenger compartment with the signal processing equipment.

[gridlock]

The 737 is probably the world's most overpowered airliner, and the Southwest pilots seem to delight in this fact during takeoff. If the country ever needs another medium bomber or cruise missile platform, the 737 would be just the ticket.

I used to ride Indian Airlines 737s into the Shrinigar (Kashmir) airport back in the early 80s. I think that runway was about as long as my driveway, and the air was reeeeeal thin up there. Those IA pilots used to firewall those engines on takeoff and landings, every single time.

You think the 737 is a hot bird, but I dare say you have never felt what it is really capable of. When they set that thing down and hit the thrust reversers, you were thrown against the belt so hard, half the people would have bumped their heads on the seat in front of them, if the seat had not already collapsed forward.

Pretty exciting stuff. Takeoffs were fun too...

[RayChuang88]

However, the A320-200's in JetBlue configuration still has trouble flying westbound from JFK to the US West Coast on a full load--I believe that JetBlue cannot fly the plane in full 162-passenger configuration on flights like JFK to Oakland, CA or JFK to Long Beach, CA. The 737-800 with the Aviation Partners winglets could easily fly fully-loaded from JFK to Oakland, CA year-round.

[Paleo Conservative]

That was the order not the fuselage. The 737 has a backlog of over 1,000 orders. That's one reason why Boeing is setting up a second 737 line in the space where the 757 line was. At one time there was speculation that Boeing was going to set up moving production lines that could produce both 737's and 757's simultaneously. Apparently it wasn't feasible.

[Paleo Conservative]

Boeing is now offering a maritime patrol variant of the 737. I just wonder if it can loiter like a P-3 Orion

I wonder if the same plane will be offered as a BBJ-2ER with the room of 727-200 but the range of the BBj-1 or better.