Boeing's 787 Dreamliner and the Decline of Innovation

[leveymg]

2. It's not that it's a bad airplane, it's just not that much better than what it's supposed to replace

Last edited Fri Jan 25, 2013, 12:47 AM - Edit history (1)

The 787 is very conventional by contemporary standards, and not at all revolutionary. The problem with the battery packs aren't even Boeing's fault. The real problem with the 787 is that commercial jets are sold to an extremely capital intensive industry that's also a heavily subsidized, very low profit margin industry, so little advances like losing some weight by using lighter batteries to gain slightly better fuel efficiency assumes outsized importance. This is because the latest generation of aircraft don't really present much of an overall advance, or advantage over designs such as the 737 that's been flying for a half century now.