2007-12-21 16:38:08 · 7 answers · asked by william W 1 in Cars & Transportation ➔ Aircraft
It's just the name of their current airplane series (7##)
http://www.boeing.com/news/releases/1998/news_release_980527a.htm
2007-12-21 16:42:49 · answer #1 · answered by Dark Matter Physicist 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Well, Boeing had been using aircraft numbers in the 300's. When they built their first jet they wanted to seperate it from the pack and not be just another 300 series. I can't remember why they passed on the 400 numbers, but they'd already allocated the 500 series to gas turbine engines and the 600 series for missles so they decided to use the 700 series. They thought 707 sounded more catchy that 700 so they started naming them 7X7. With the exception of the 717 the newer the model the higher the middle number so for example the 727 is an older model than the 757. The 717 is the exception as Boeing had initially refered to the KC-135 tanker (which is a military version of the prototype 707) as the 717, but then quit that and had 717 available to use.
2007-12-22 01:32:03 · answer #2 · answered by Kevin 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
There's an interesting story about the final 7, by the way, which goes like this:
The 707 was one of the first passenger airliners with a swept-back wing. Since the wings are supposedly swept back by 45 degrees, the engineers encountered the figure sin(45) = cos(45) = 0.707 frequently, leading to the plane being numbered the 707.
It's unlikely to be true, though - the wing sweep is actually 35 degrees according to http://forum.projectopensky.com/index.php?showtopic=21706&st=0
2007-12-22 10:18:35 · answer #3 · answered by aravind 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
martin had the 400 series like the 404, convair had the 500 series 540,s then heres the clincher convaie had the 800,s and 900,s 880 and 990 so my guess is boeing next geration will be the B1000 series,
2007-12-22 03:09:25 · answer #4 · answered by John N 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Same reason airbus has a A3## for all their planes. But my guess would be because of previous military planes and passenger planes, the 700 series probably just represents commercial jet airplanes starting from their first 707-787 all which have been jet powered commercial airliners.
Thats a really good question though.
2007-12-22 00:41:00 · answer #5 · answered by Ezz 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Lucky number?
Wotan
2007-12-22 00:46:24 · answer #6 · answered by Alberich 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Its a series. Like Mercedes has s class and c class and so on
2007-12-22 00:47:29 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋