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>Landing gear is limited by physics and just making it taller won’t fix everything. Every other plane is higher than the 737. The only reason the engines neede
by mrguyorama 1y ago
>Landing gear is limited by physics and just making it taller won’t fix everything.
Every other plane is higher than the 737. The only reason the engines needed to be pushed forward on the 737, is that the 737 was built back in the day to be lower to the ground for easier operations at poorer airports, with things like stairs and baggage.
The 737 doesn't need to be as short as it is anymore because the vast majority of them now fly to airports with jetbridges and modern bag handling equipment.
The A320 is not as short as the 737 despite serving the same market, and can handle bigger engines.
But the entire problem stems from wanting to abuse the 737 type rating even further. If they were fine with a new type rating, they could put the engines pretty much wherever they want, put nice tall landing gear, etc.
- TylerE 1y agoThat isn’t really true. Air stairs are still very common in much of Europe and Asia. It’s only places like the US and the Middle East that jet bridges are ubiquitous.
- spogbiper 1y agoalso common in south america in my experience
- travisjungroth 1y agoCan confirm, about to board an airplane with an air stair in Peru. An A320, actually.
- rescbr 1y agoWhich is absolutely not a problem on the A320. I have boarded plenty of narrow-body Airbuses using the stairs.
- hinkley 1y agoThe software I wrote for them had to be legal to ship to every country except The Four, which created some new copyright scenarios I’d never dealt with before. When you’re trying to sell to 190 countries, you gotta be ready for a lot, and I’m not surprised that the external stairs are still a thing. Doubly so for a regional jet, which could be flying from all of your country to the nearest international airport.