What is 242 feet and 4 inches long, 212 feet and 7 inches wide and an absolute beast of a flying machine?
It's the Boeing 777-300ER, the largest and most popular variant of Boeing's mega-size twinjet family.
The jet ushered in the era of high-density twinjet service when the 777-200 entered service with launch customer United Airlines in 1995 (on a plane that's still in service with United today). The aircraft is highly popular with airlines (more than 1,500 passenger and freighter variants have been delivered) because it can carry a large number of passengers — and cargo — long distances using only two engines. This spreads the already lower operating costs (thanks to two engines instead of three or four) over many seats and pounds of cargo.
The Boeing 777 will mark the 30th anniversary of its first flight in 2024 — a year before the next generation of the mega-twin, the 777X, is expected to enter service.
Air France is a major operator of the Boeing 777. The French flag carrier, which took delivery of the first 777-300ER in 2004, hosted me in September for a tour of the carrier's new 777 business-class cabin. As part of that experience, I got to explore not one, but two Boeing 777-300ERs that were at the carrier's Paris-Orly Airport (ORY) maintenance facility, Air France Industries. As I walked around these two engineering marvels (registered F-GZNS and F-GSQR) — looking inside the massive engines, exploring the flight deck and walking around the cargo bay — I was truly in awe.
Using some photos from that visit — and some others — here are six incredible facts about the Boeing 777.
Its engines are the most powerful in the world
The sole engine option on the 777-300ER is the General Electric GE90-115B, delivering approximately 115,000 pounds of takeoff thrust in each engine.
The massive fan has a diameter of 128 inches, just a few inches smaller than the diameter of a Boeing 737 fuselage. The GE90-115B was the largest jet engine in the world until the larger GE9X was introduced for the 777X. That engine has a 134-inch diameter, though it provides less thrust than the GE90.
The engine has a 9:1 bypass ratio — meaning that for every nine units of air that bypass the core of the engine, one unit goes through it. You can see how much air gets forced around the core (the round area with all the piping) in the above photo.
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The Museum of Modern Art in New York City has a GE90-115B fan blade in its collection. These curved fan blades are made out of composite material.
The 777 was Boeing's 1st fly-by-wire aircraft
Move the 777s yoke in the flight deck, and it won't directly move a control surface.
Instead, the flight deck controls are connected to computers, which then move the actual controls.
It's a principle called fly-by-wire, and it changes the way that pilots interact with the aircraft. For instance, the fly-by-wire system blocks control inputs beyond a certain range, adding an additional layer of safety.
Airbus beat Boeing to fly-by-wire technology with the introduction of the A320 at the end of the 1980s, and since then, the two manufacturers have taken divergent philosophies about fly-by-wire — and aircraft automation as a whole. Boeing's second fly-by-wire aircraft, the 787, uses fly-by-wire technology developed from the 777's technology. Even the 737 MAX — often lambasted in aviation circles for being a new plane that uses 1960s technology — has a fly-by-wire spoiler system.
The aircraft can hold more than 500 passengers
Japan's two major airlines have operated Boeing 777-300s that held 500 or more passengers — a tremendous amount of capacity for a twin-engine, single-deck aircraft.
All Nippon Airways operates Pratt & Whitney-powered 777-300s used for intra-Japan service with a capacity of 514 passengers: 21 in premium class and 419 in economy class. Before their pandemic-era retirement, archrival Japan Airlines' 777-300s held 500 passengers: 78 in business class and 422 in economy class.
Talk about an efficiency boost — ANA once operated a fleet of domestic 747-400s that held 567 passengers. That plane had twice as many engines to carry just 53 more passengers.
The number 419 is notable for the 777 in another way: Boeing targeted the shorter Boeing 777-200 to be certified for a maximum of 420 passengers. Winning that certification is contingent upon successfully completing an exit limit test: a mock evacuation of the aircraft in less than 90 seconds with certain exits blocked. When Boeing conducted that test, 419 of the 420 volunteers playing "passengers" made it out in time. So, the Federal Aviation Administration certified the aircraft for a maximum of 419 passengers. That test was chronicled in the 1996 PBS documentary "21st Century Jet."
Back to capacity: One of the aircraft that I toured in Paris is a member of a subfleet that boasts the highest capacity among 777-300ER operators. The second aircraft I saw, F-GSQR, serves leisure routes and has just 14 seats in business class, along with 28 premium economy seats and 430 seats in economy class, for a total of 472 seats.
The 777-300ER has the same fuselage as the 777-300, though it boasts a redesigned wing, additional fuel capacity, and different takeoff and landing weights. Combined, all of this leads to a higher-performance variant.
ANA operates the lowest-capacity 777-300ER
It's fair to say that ANA deploys the 777 across very diverse missions.
As previously mentioned, the airline crams 514 passengers into a 777-300 used across short-haul routes.
On the flip side, one of ANA's 777-300ER configurations has just 212 seats — fewer than half of the seats used in the domestic configuration on an aircraft with the same-size fuselage. (This is the configuration that features ANA's The Room business class, a product that TPG's Eric Rosen recently gave a rave review.)
The shortest 777 route is just 45 miles
The ER in 777-300ER stands for extended range. However, that's not something KLM needs for the short, 45-mile, 35-minute hop it makes three days a week in Tanzania; this route is between Abeid Amani Karume International Airport (ZNZ) in Zanzibar and Julius Nyerere International Airport (DAR) in Dar es Salaam. The flight operates as a segment of a triangle route between Amsterdam Airport Schiphol (AMS), ZNZ and DAR. KLM does not carry any local traffic or cargo between the two airports.
The longest 777 route is 8,328 miles
Saudia's flight from King Abdulaziz International Airport (JED) in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) is the world's longest 777 flight — and one of the world's longest flights, period. Westbound, the thrice-weekly flight is blocked at more than 16 hours.
Interestingly, the 777-300ER is not the longest-range 777 variant. That honor goes to the 777-200LR, the initials of which stand for long range. The passenger version of the 777-200LR was a commercial flop, with just 61 delivered. However, the 777-200LR is the platform used for the 777's freighter variant, the 777F, which has been much more successful: As of Sept. 30, 2022, 212 have been delivered.
The world's second-longest 777 flight is operated with the 777-200LR. Emirates' daily 8,165-mile flight between Dubai International Airport (DXB) and George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) in Houston also takes more than 16 hours.
Bottom line
Nearly 30 years in, we might take aircraft like the Boeing 777 for granted. However, the giant twin paved the way for the retirement of less-efficient aircraft such as the McDonnell Douglas MD-11 and Boeing 747; it set new technological milestones for both Boeing and the industry.
The introduction of the Boeing 777 into commercial service was truly a watershed event in commercial aviation history.
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6 incredible facts about the Boeing 777 - The Points Guy
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