Single engine airliners?

Question

Single turboprops are all the rage (Meridians, Caravans, and PC-12s) and the Diamond D-Jet and Piper Jet both are planned with single jet engines. Will we ever see a single-engined passenger (over 100 seats) airliner?

Would you fly on it?

Any of the large engines (like the GE90 and RR Trent) could power a 737-sized airliner with power to spare.

Here's two double-engine failures on twins with no fatalities (one crossing the Atlantic)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_glider

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Transat_Flight_236

Answer 1

No, because federal legal requirements call for airliners to safely fly with one engine out. It took considerable negotiation and proof testing for Boeing to have only two engines instead of 3 or 4 on its latest big plane.
If there is 1 chance in 1000 of an engine going out in a given time frame, then the chances of two engines going out is 1 in 1,000,000.

Answer 2

No, we will not see single engine airliners any time soon. The size of a single engine necessary to attain required performance will be prohibitively large. There is no way you would be able to integrate a single engine into an airliner without a revolutionary change in propulsion technology and airframe integration.

Edited to add:

You are completely clueless if you think a GE90 can be integrated as a single engine on an airframe. The max diameter of the GE-90 is 134 inches (or 135 inches for the -115B), not even including a nacelle. The max fuselage diameter for the 737-200 is 148 inches. How do you think a single engine, virtually as large as the fuselage, can be integrated into a conventional airliner airframe?

While I understand and appreciate the question you are trying to ask (regarding consumer confidence and willingness to fly a single engine aircraft) your understanding of aircraft design is cursory at best.

Do I think that single engine airliners could be feasible in the future? Probably, but like I said before, it will take a revolutionary change in propulsion and airframe technology.

Answer 3

Probably not. There is just not enough safety margin. To add insult to injury, it's illegal in the US and many other countries to have single engine and or single pilot planes carry more than about 10 people. Anyways, with 20 years experience as a tech and engineer, you'll never catch me on a single engine plane that can't survive an engine-out landing, and no large airframes can.

Answer 4

An Airline with planes that use single engine planes, would have to be a very small, commuting airline. A Caravan would be a great choice for a single engine plane, say if your going JFK to BOS.

Answer 5

They can build all the single-engine jet airliners they want, and they can tell me all day how safe they are, but there is no way I will get on one. No way. I don't imagine there will ever be one, either. Engines on airplanes fail all the time.

Answer 6

No matter how much jet engines reliability improves, two smaller engines will do better than the big one. Lowering maintenance and building costs would not pay for the rising risks.