Boeing Moves Towards New Planes
maliabu writes "Boeing has named its new plane DreamLiner with plans for its future, which is set to fly in 2008. It'll be interesting to see how 'internet-ready' this 7E7 is. It can be very entertaining for all ages as you can brower the net, check emails, weather, watch movies (on demand), listen to music (on demand) or even cut codes some 30,000 feet in the sky! These articles also stated that "The 200-seat 7E7 is meant to replace [a faster plane called] Sonic Cruiser as Boeing's next new major commercial initiative" " I think most people following the airplane builders knew the Sonic Cruiser was dead before birth; but I still don't see how this plane is going to solve Boeing's sales problems.
Boeing has to come with something new. This year will probably be the first year that Airbus will sell more planes than Boeing.
There is almost nothing new with this airplane. Its baiscally a modernized 757/767 with more fuel-efficient engines and light-weight material. Similar materials are used on the Airbus A380. I am not an airbus fan, but something like the A380 is just way more spectacular than this. Even the new 747-800 that was just announced is a way cooler airplane.
E for e-enabled? Come on! Conexxion by Boeing can be put into pretty much every Boeing and probably most other major aircraft as well. I had a lot of fun on Lufthansa LH418 surfing the net 30000 feet above Iceland and I would really like to see this on every long-haul flight. But there's no need for a new airplane to offer this, its already there. Lufthansa will soon offer this on most of their trans-atlantic flights.
They rely on marketing to make this plane look like something so spectacular that it deserves a "real" name (not sticking to the 7x7 tradition). But the technology is plain boring. I can understand their decision, given the current market situation, but trying to sell this as something extraordinary is prettty dumb.