Joe Sutter, who guided creation of the Boeing 747, has died

Re:Joe Sutter, who guided creation of the Boeing 747, has died by paulpauper on Friday September 02, 2016 @08:41AM (#12412602)

I wonder what the limits to airplane size are? Would it be possible to make a version that seats thousands of passengers

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Joe Sutter, who guided creation of the Boeing 747, has died by gumby on Friday September 02, 2016 @01:02PM (#12414463)

A lot of them are system issues: you need a LOT of passengers going point-point, and you need the airport infrastructure.

Consider the A380: it can only fly into airports that have been modified/built for them; takes forever to load/unload passengers, and only works for a few long haul routes. Most airlines are losing money on it (few are in the Qantas/Emirates mode) and thus the order book is not strong. I doubt anyone will build a larger plane.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Joe Sutter, who guided creation of the Boeing 747, has died by arprocter on Friday September 02, 2016 @12:50PM (#12414380)

I think the size limitation is the airports, not the planes.

Before it became a regular sight, there was speculation as to whether or not the A380 was 'too big' for Gatwick

[ Parent | on HN ]