The Boeing 777

Commercial aircraft are the result of the airline requirements which shape them, attempting to fulfill, as completely and cost-effectively as possible, the particular combination of mission goals.  For airliner-type aircraft, these include two primary parameters: payload, comprised of passengers, baggage, cargo, and mail, and range, which enables a carrier to offer nonstop service between specific city pairs.

Aircraft configurations are, in essence, design solutions to intended operating missions and hence vary according to fuselage length and width; wingspan, planform, and sweepback; engine type, thrust, and mounting; and horizontal and vertical tail location and size.

The 777 traces its origins to 1986 when Boeing had first determined the need for a widebody design sandwiched, in capacity, between its existing 767-300 and 747-400 to replace the McDonnell-Douglas DC-10 and Lockheed L-1011 trijets.  Although initial configurations, all designed 767-X, had closely resembled its predecessor 767 with a larger capacity and winglets, it had quickly become apparent that an all-new design, the seventh in the Boeing Commercial Airplane Company line, would be needed after a last-ditch iteration had featured a winglet-equipped 767 with a 757 fuselage graphed on to its aft section, producing a semi-double decker.  Aside from the aerodynamic drag considerations, the existing underfloor baggage, cargo, and mail volume would have been inadequate for its projected capacity.  Because of increasingly more reliable and higher capacity turbofans, the new aircraft could, like the 767, be configured round two of them.

Boeing Board of Director authority to offer the new design, still designated 767-X, had been granted on December 8, 1989 for an aircraft which had been 16 feet longer, 41 inches wider, and had sported a 14-foot greater wingspan than its predecessor, but initial feedback from All Nippon, American, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Delta, Japan Air Lines, Qantas, and United had indicated that Boeing had not been innovative enough: they had all sought a still larger aircraft with state-of-the-art technology, such as fly-by-wire flight controls, and extended-range twin-engine operational capability.

A further iteration, with a 20.3-foot wide, circular fuselage cross section, had resulted in a 747-like, twin-aisled passenger cabin, and its 199.11-foot, supercritical wing, with a 31.6-degree sweepback, had been able to  meet design goal cruise speeds, yet meet American Airliners’ DC-10-size gate compatibility requirements with innovative, foldable wingtips.  It would be the world’s largest twin-jet, of narrow or widebody dimensions, ever to be produced. Because of its relatively late design phase, it would equally offer the widest cabin, of 244 inches, among its competitors, as opposed to the 222 inches of the A-330 and 237 inches of the MD-11.