From kls Fri Jul 26 10:59:14 1996 Newsgroups: sci.aeronautics.airliners,misc.transport.air-industry Path: bounce-back From: Michael Leduc Subject: Re: A3XX vs B747-600 (was: Airbus lawsuit coming?) Approved: kls@ohare.Chicago.COM Sender: kls@ohare.Chicago.COM References: Organization: Concordia University, Montreal, Canada Reply-To: mikel@alcor.concordia.ca Date: 26 Jul 96 10:59:14 Message-ID: Don Stokes wrote: > Why is this? I thought Boeing was designing a new wing for the B747-500 > and -600, since the existing B747 wing is pretty much at its limits on > the -400. I would have thought that the aircraft could be stretched > further if the wing was up to the job. > > Experience says that if there's one thing Boeing knows best about > building jet transports it's getting the wing right. That may be true, but one must not extend the wing too much. The maximum wing span has just about been reached for commercial aircraft, for the time being. Extending the wing size would mean new airport terminal design for nose-in-gate positioning or parking the aircraft out on an apron and using shuttle busses. Shuttle busses are used at some airports but this only adds to the passenger inconvenience.