93
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What does "Boeing" mean?
It's named for one of its founders William E. Boeing which is the American spelling of his father's German surname "Böing".
To answer the question directly: it does not mean anything in particular.
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46
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Why was this commercial jet accompanied by small plane near Seattle?
It's a Fedex 777F N894FD in (probably) pre-delivery aerial photography/test flight accompanied by one of Boeing's chase aircraft.
After some maneuvers (shown below), the plane headed to MEM, Fedex's "...
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Is it possible to upgrade a Boeing 747-8 and Airbus A380's engines for greater speed?
I just wanted to comment on this question since some of my code is on the A380's GE engine.
Those engines are optimized for fuel efficiency at their cruising altitude and speed. The tradeoff that ...
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41
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What are these five indicators at the front of the 737 passenger cabin?
This is the forward Master Call Light Panel installed in the ceiling of the cabin. A second one is located aft. These panels exist on all large aircraft for the cabin crew members to be alerted ...
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38
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Has Boeing ever tried to compete with the A380, especially now that the B747 is retired in many companies, such as Qantas?
The premise of the question is flawed: the A380 competed unsuccessfully against the 747.
The 747 was produced for about 55 years. The A380 was in production for about one third as long, about 18 years....
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35
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Is it possible to upgrade a Boeing 747-8 and Airbus A380's engines for greater speed?
If the engines are upgraded to "better" ones, the manufacturer would make it result in increased carrying capacity or increased range (or both), but not increased speed.
The limitation is the ...
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33
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What is this open panel at the rear of this airplane?
It is the Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) inlet door.
Image from Boeing Aero Magazine
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33
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Why are aircraft parts built in different places and assembled in one?
You can only hire so many people at one place, and also only find so much land there, so when the whole process no longer fits, there is no other option than start building components at other places ...
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31
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Why didn’t Boeing ramp 737NG production back up in response to the 737 MAX groundings?
There are several reasons why.
First, it takes an awfully long time to make that kind of switch. While one can switch an assembly line for a product, that works rather differently for (say) ...
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28
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Why didn't Boeing produce its own regional jet?
Boeing did have a small regional jet called the Boeing 727. This plane was designed to operate at smaller airports, with independence from ground facilities as a selling feature. The best example is ...
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26
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Why was this commercial jet accompanied by small plane near Seattle?
It looks like an air-air photography trip by Boeing - the lead airplane is a LearJet, a type often used for this type of job with a turreted camera sticking out of the floor for views to the rear, ie ...
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26
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How have engineers managed to increase commercial airliner wing aspect ratios over time?
As to what makes higher aspect ratios feasible, no magic here:
Aerospace materials have improved over time, in quality and strength.
Carbon gets a lot of hype, part deserved and part not. It's just ...
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25
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Why has the 777x been designed with folding wingtips?
The Boeing 777X website states that this is to enable a more efficient wing (read: wider span) while maintaining the airport gate and taxi footprint of the classic 777 (which ensures airlines can use ...
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25
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Why has the 777x been designed with folding wingtips?
Many modern aircraft have been designed with winglets, and older ones have been retrofitted with them. They allow a wing to produce more lift with less drag. However, the benefit is even greater if ...
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25
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Why did Boeing never replace the 757?
The gap happened because the 737MAX wasn’t part of the original plan.
The 767 and 757 shared a type rating and a lot of common parts, and orders had dried up for both, so they didn’t have much choice ...
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23
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What is a "Pod-Pak"?
A Pod-Pak is a aerodynamically shaped enclosure to transport an extra engine under the wing.
From 'Flying Magazine', Nov 1959:
Spare engine in “Pod Pak” is the airlines' modern method of
...
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22
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Can the 747 be re-engined as a twin?
Currently, the 777 has engines that have a max thrust of 115,000 lbf, for a total of 230,000 lbf of thrust. The 747-8 has engines with a max thrust of 66,500 lbf, each, for a total of 266000. And just ...
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22
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Airplane generations - how does it work?
While airliners don't have "model years" like cars do, they are certainly changed over time.
There are major "generations" of some aircraft types, like the 737. The "original" (-100,-200) was ...
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21
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What was Boeing's competitor to the C-5?
In 1964 the US Air Force awarded study contracts for a new cargo aircraft to Boeing, Douglas and Lockheed. The aircraft was called CX-HLS. ( cargo experimental - heavy logistics system)
Lockheed won ...
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21
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How does envelope protection work in Airbus vs. Boeing aircraft?
There are two sorts of "autopilots", and it is important to make a distinction between the two. One is for the behaviour of the aircraft around its Centre of Gravity (CoG), the other one is for ...
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20
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Why are aircraft parts built in different places and assembled in one?
There are many considerations in where parts are manufactured or assembled, and not all are directly related to economics.
Both Boeing and Airbus have assembly lines located around the world, so it ...
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19
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What is that little black thing tied to the vertical stabilizer?
That’s a trailing cone. It hangs out behind the aircraft and serves to calibrate the aircraft’s pitot-static system against static pressure error by providing a static source for ambient air ...
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17
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Did Boeing build airliners other than the 7x7 series?
Yes, Boeing built other airliners, with different numbering, although none of them were jet-powered. Three iconic designs come to my mind right away, although there were others:
The Boeing 247 ...
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17
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Why didn’t Boeing ramp 737NG production back up in response to the 737 MAX groundings?
One factor, probably the biggest factor in my opinion, is that a production program is a ship that takes a year or so to change direction and the decisions and planning for the ramp-down were taken ...
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15
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Why do Boeing aircraft have serrated engine nacelles, but Airbus does not?
It doesn't appear to be a patent thing. The main work on the chevron (shaped nozzles) was done by NASA. Every design decision in an aircraft is a compromise and this was no different. The addition of ...
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15
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Why did the first Boeing B17 test flight crash on takeoff?
The prototype aircraft had small "blocks" (more like wedges) which were used to prevent the control surfaces moving in the wind and potentially damaging the control surfaces, or even moving the ...
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14
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Why did Boeing not create a new 737 instead of just upgrading the old model?
Other sources confirm the statement from your documentary that James "Jim" McNerney made the decision to build the 737 MAX rather than a new model:
When Airbus was about to land American ...
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13
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Where do airplane variant numbers come from?
Chinese superstition. The same reason Airbus went with the 380 number when 350 would have been next in line.
The Chinese sign for 8 looks like an up arrow (八) and 8 is the lucky number in Chinese. ...
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What was Boeing's competitor to the C-5?
Boeing called the aircraft CX-HLS( Cargo Experimental - Heavy Logistics System). It never entered production though.
The below image is of a scaled down model of the CX-HLS.
Source: Boeing Archives - ...
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