Boeing Sonic Cruiser is shelved!

lucasiu — Fri, 20 Dec 2002 05:51:19 GMT

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/100543_sonic19.shtml

Boeing just announced it would not develop Sonic Cruiser, which is promised to change the aviation world. It would develop a super efficient plane that looks very much like 767 and 777, with 767-400ER style raked winglet, capacity of 200-250, twin-engined design, and range of at least 8500nm.

Its cockpit is the same as B777, so reducing flight crew training time. But its cross-section is somewhere between B767 and B777, so it has very different parts compared to B767 and B777, not as good as Airbus A330/A340, which have the same parts for all sizes of the same family.

It just looks like mini-B777, and is expected to replace B767, because A330 is taking larger market share of 250-300 seats jet market.

But I think it is very questionable to use twin-engine design for such a long range aircraft, because all twin-engined jets are ETOPS-constrainted, so they cannot go to places with ETOPS no-go zones, nor the extreme areas, like the poles, Southern Hemisphere transoceanic routes.

Hope Airbus can produce smaller variants of A330 and A340, so to provide small-sized long haul jets to the market with better commonality.

General Aviation

Boeing Sonic Cruiser is shelved!