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Comment by blakeyrat | Hacker News Reader

Maximum speed and capacity aren't increasing because those aren't problematic factors. Right now the most important place for improvement is in fuel economy, and at that modern planes are doing much better than their 1970s equivalents.

The 747-400 costs $47.34 per nautical mile, the 787-8 only $27.35. Sure it's not as visible to the passengers (except indirectly in the form of cheaper tickets), but that is a huge improvement in an important metric.

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1. The costs you cite, is assuming $6 per gallon for jet fuel. But the 2016 TYD is $1.39. http://www.transtats.bts.gov/fuel.asp

Thus, the values would be about $11 for the 747-400. 6.37 for the 787-8.

In addition, at the $6 gallon rate, the newer 3rd generation 747, the 747-8 which uses the same engines (and I believe redesigned wings consistent with the 787-8) as the 787-8 is $42.49 compared with $47.34 for the older 747-400.

At the current $1.39 YTD per gallon price, the 747-8 costs $9.85 per nautical mile.

It's the four-engine design. They just suck down fuel like crazy. As a passenger, I like the redundancy of having four engines for trans-ocean flight. But it looks like the modern two-engine planes with high-bypass engines have proven themselves to be "reliable enough", as well as more fuel-efficient.

I can think of only one ETOPS-rated aircraft in recent history that got into trouble due to multiple engine failure. That was flight 38 at Heathrow in 2008, which crashed short of the runway due to ice buildup in the fuel system.[1]

So it's definitely rare. Personally I love 777s--part of the attraction is the monster turbofans. Most long-range models have GE90 engines, which are total beasts. They incidentally have extremely low shutdown rates.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_38

It's also worth noting that we've learned the hard way that many types of accidents take-out all four engines simultaneously-- like British Airways Flight 9 in 1982 which accidentally flew through a volcanic flume and lost all four engines.

The 777 is my favorite also, it's a beautiful well-designed and well-built plane with an almost unbelievable safety record. (Barring being sabotaged by the pilot, or being shot down by a surface-to-air missile, which are hardly things you can blame on the aircraft itself.)

Upvote from one triple 7 fan to another. I love those planes. The Heathrow flight 38 crash was the first hull loss in the history of the 777 program: not bad considering the first commercial flight was in 1995.

Still have not flown in a 787 as I mostly fly United and they don't have too many of them in the fleet yet. Ironically it's mostly 747s on the routes I regularly fly to Europe so I get to experience them regularly along with the odd A-380. (The latter a comfortable ride but just no poetry in the thing. It looks like a squashed frog.)

My fascination with the 777 lead me to a great documentary on Rolls Royce and jet engine manufacture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfomloUg2Gw.

Note that Rolls Royce faces stiff competition with chiefly General Electric as the engine supplier for the 777 line.

Doesn't a 747 hold twice as many passengers though?

I'm pretty sure the metric has been a little distorted by the improved sardine packing.

The 747 takes only about 50% more passengers in most seating configurations. However, that does not make it cheaper or more efficient to operate because it's harder to fill the plane especially when flying from smaller airports.

Meanwhile many 747s are only in service now because fuel prices are relatively low. Once the prices go up they will likely be replaced by 777s or other models that are easier to fill up and cost less to operated.

I confirmed this recently with a United Airlines 747 trainer who was booked on the same 747 flight as I was. He loved the plane and didn't want to fly anything else.

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