The plane with folding wings
Big Boeing will have a new trick to fit into airport gates
Next to Boeing’s massive Everett factory near Seattle, a big part of the company’s future is being built. In the 12ha Composite Wing Centre, the wings of the next generation 777s are being baked in 500-tonne autoclaves.
The big pressure cookers use nitrogen, natural gas and water to cure parts of the wings, the biggest ever built by Boeing for an airliner.
While the 777X fuselages will be built largely of aluminium, the swept up composite wings are brand new for the aircraft, which are being considered by airlines such as Air New Zealand and Qantas, for flying further than they’ve ever flown before.
The 777-9 is due to roll off the production line in 2020 but it is the slightly smaller 777-8, due in 2022, that will be suited to the ultra-long flights that are of interest to airlines in this region.
While the plane could make Europe from Australia’s east coast or New York from Auckland, it is crucial there are no payload penalties. Airlines want to be able to fly full planes to make them profitable.
The 777X will compete against the Airbus A350-900ULR, an aircraft that will beat it into service. From next year, Singapore Airlines will fly the ultralong-range A350 more than 15,000km from its base to New York.
The 777-9 can carry up to 425 passengers as far as 14,075km
The 777-8 seats up to 375 passengers as far as 16,110km and its wings can fold up about 6m from their tips.
Keskar said this would allow the aircraft to use gates at airports that another Airbus rival, the A380, cannot use as it has a fixed wingspan of 80m.
Folding wings have been used for decades, notably on aircraft carrierbased planes, but Boeing had simplified the technology for the 777X. Rather than hydraulic mechanisms, the new plane would have a wire running out to a small motor at the point of the fold.
“By doing so there’s no complexity — a lot of pilots have come and had a look at it. They’re very comfortable with it.”
Boeing had opted for the traditional aluminium fuselage rather than carbon fibre because testing had revealed it was as strong as it needed to be for larger windows, and to be pressurised to a lower altitude than existing 777s, which first flew in 1994.
The Boeing Dreamliner fuselage is made from a large proportion of carbon fibre, but to do the same with the new 777 would have required an investment in new autoclaves and pushed up costs that airlines could have baulked at.
Boeing this week announced 20 orders for the 777X from Singapore Airlines. So far there have been 326 orders for the plane, including from all three Gulf carriers.
— Grant Bradley travelled to Seattle courtesy of Qantas and Boeing
The outlook for business travel is strong, but any further softening of the dollar could put the brakes on the growth in airline capacity, says FCM Travel Solutions general manager Andy Jack. While his firm has booked a record number of business clients in premium cabins during the past year and believes there is still strong demand from Kiwi companies, the weaker dollar since coalition announcements could dull what’s been called the golden age of travel. “It was always expected that the currency was going to soften. It is something we are going to have to watch,” says Jack. “The cost of fuel goes up and then it’s a matter of who’s going to stick around in the long haul.” New airlines could still enter the market but not at the same rate as in the past two years. FCM is part of Flight Centre, and across all its business travel brands, corporate travel has increased by 11 per cent this year compared to 2016. And 95 per cent of FCM’s clients believe their travel spend will be the same or increase over the next year. During the past year, the most significant growth was in Australia, the New Zealand domestic market and in Asia. Europe and the United States have not experienced the same levels of growth. More corporate travellers are opting for ultralong-haul non-stop flights. Emirates’ flights to Dubai and Qatar Airways services to Doha are popular. But flights of 17 hours-plus are highlighting the need for Wi-fi connectivity, Jack says. “It’s huge — nobody wants to be in the air for a day or two and then arrive with everything else in the world turning. Dead time doesn’t work,” he says. Airlines including Cathay, Emirates and American have Wi-fi and Air New Zealand will introduce it. Companies are also less concerned about getting the cheapest fare on specific airlines. “I think price point is still a factor but you’re balancing that up with traveller welfare and productivity in the air,” says Jack.