[Hodar]

What? Did you drink orange juice for breakfast, or drive in to work?

The Pilot is the commander on every aircraft. He makes the calls, it doesn’t matter in the least whether it’s Boeing, Airbus or a CRJ.

Boeing has been milking a design for 40+ years. That is PATHETIC. The 747 is older than the Space Shuttle. The technology available when the 747 was created is utterly obsolete now. Time to scap the 747, and move forward and actually INNOVATE.

The competition is there, they are innovating and creating competition on both the small (CRJ lines) as well as the large international (Airbus) side of the industry.

Boeing is tweaking 40 yr old designs. At this rate, they will be GONE in another 10 years (at best).

[ASA Vet]

Is this innovation enough?

[antiRepublicrat]

There’s not much in the latest 747 that was there in the original. The cockpit, avionics, engines and even the wings are completely different from the original.

Sometimes a good basic design can last a long time. Take the Mauser rifle action, with some tweaking it’s survived as one of the most beloved actions worldwide for well over a hundred years.

[driftdiver]

Have the laws of physics or aerodynamics changed in the last 40 years?

[TalonDJ]

Boeing is tweaking 40 yr old designs.

The 787 does a lot more that is innovative than they A380. Size does not mean everything. Boeing did not build a super sized plane because their very careful checks of the market conditions lead them to think there was not room to make money their. They customers said they wanted a mid-size aircraft that was a huge leap in efficiency. So that is what they made.