No, not another Max thread. Simply looking at the 777. Any time a clean sheet design is talked about it is always brought up how hard and expensive it is and that it is not uncommon for the planned completion date to slip. Yet in December of 1989 Boeing started talking to airlines what they wanted for a new aircraft. Then in May of 1995 just six and a half years later they delivered the first one to United. Just 2 weeks after that it had 180 minute ETOPS certification. What I have read says that a 777 has very little in common with models before it so it is not like they revamped (they thought about it) a 767.

Now a modification that started in 2011 is still not done 11 years later and assuming that there are no more delays it is still 3 years out scheduled for 2025. I know they are doing big changes like a carbon fiber wing folding tips etc. but how can it possibly take twice as long as a clean sheet airplane?

Airbus proposed the A350 in 2004 and was certified in 2014 so not nearly as fast as Boeing was with the original 777 but faster than Boeing can modify one.

I am not an engineer just a dumb auto mechanic so those of you that are engineers please educate me.

Operators don't want to pay for training.....for new aircraft. Hence the reason for the Max issues and the perceived ability for drop in pilots.

The OEMs have history of "growing" models with changes....until they can't. The question remains....when is too much....too much for a model to continue to grow?

FAA

Not necessarily....tell us what an ODA is and how that helps speed development.

Boeing used to be run by engineers. It’s not just the 777 program: the now-ended 747 program also took about five years from contract signature to flying in-revenue service .
Alan Mullaly, an engineer, ran the 777 program and developed the multi-stakeholder “Working Together” program. When Boeing didn’t make him CEO he was hired by Bill Ford to turn Ford around, which he did and was chronicled in a great book called “American Icon.”
My uneducated sense is that there are too many bureaucrats and politicians running Boeing and not enough engineers.
BWTHDIK

Boeing doesn't necessarily suck, it's just complicated...

Here's two examples:

First-----

One summer during college (late 70's), I interned at GE's Aircraft Engine Group in Evendale, OH. I was placed in the advanced performance group, headed by the legendary Pete Kutschenreuter (a real gentleman), and his even more legendary boss, Art Adamson (grumpy old man).

My job was to run performance studies on upcoming Airbus designs (SA9, SA11, TA9 and TA11), which became the A320, A321, A340, and A350, respectively (yes, design studies may predate actual program launch by a decade or more). The guy sitting next to me, a graybeard named Paul Feig, ran all the Boeing studies. The guy next to him, McDonnell-Douglas, and the guy next to him, Lockheed (even though they were out of the market).

I would input the various city pairs a particular airline might fly, add in historical winds, fuel reserves, etc, and generate a 6-8 inch stack of computer output (remember the IBM 360 22 x 14 printer output?). Every day the computer department would deliver 5 to 6 of these 20 lb books for my analysis. Often, I had discussions with Paul to understand the nuances of all these pages of numbers.

Bottom line: even during the late 70's/early 80's having 3-6 seats too many (one extra row) or too few could destroy an airline's finances. Finding the sweet spot of operating expenses vs. payload vs. range meant a lot of back and forth between the airlines, airframers, and engine makers to find the correct airframe size, seat pitch, engine thrust ratings, etc. Once a solution most everyone (especially the launch customer) agreed upon, there was little incentive (or benefit) to making changes. Add in the regulatory constraints for certification and you have a recipe for design ossification and long times between products.

The operating margins and economics today are only more pronounced.

Second----

I spent my final 2 years in industry as a customer support engineer working on a Boeing program (I was employed by the engine manufacturer). I spent plenty of time at Everett (home of Boeing wide bodies). The problem? Boeing is BIG. Massively BIG. Horizon to horizon BIG. So big nobody has a clear, high level idea of what's going on. Early in this assignment, I was having a technical discussion with the engineering group in the engine shop whose job it was to relay shop floor issues to me, have me resolve, create the appropriate paperwork/approvals, and return to them for implementation. I mentioned to them they should also consult with the main propulsion group who I also dealt with. They gave me a blank stare. These two groups (shop and main) were only a building apart (about 300 feet), had both been working on the same program for years, and yet neither group had any idea who the players were in the other group. I made the introductions.

It was just as bad on the production line (adjacent to the engine shop), on the flight line, at Boeing Field, etc. Everyone knew the general direction where a different group was located, but no one could create a link for communication, resolving issues, etc. Supervisors would come around asking for my business card so they had someone, ANYONE to call.

However, it made my life fun. My Boeing badge gave me wide latitude to venture around the plant, so I could walk onto a plane on the production line, look around, ask questions, and no one cared.

Art

It's interesting to look at the 787 as a data point too.

It looks like first pen-to-paper for that airframe was the start of the 7E7 program in 2003. First flight of the 787 was 2009, and first delivery was in 2011. The -9 variant started flight testing in 2011 and first delivery was in 2014. Sounds good so far, right?

Then the -10 variant launched in 2013 and was first delivered in 2018-- a five-year window. Still pretty good overall.

So we went from the 7E7 to 788 to the 789 to the -10 in 15 years. That's not too bad-- probably slower than Boeing would have liked but not obviously awful considering at the same time they were adding a second production line, integrating Spirit and Mitsubishi, etc.

But after that? Pffft. The 737MAX, delays in the 777X, the entire and complete CST100 fiasco, the problems with SLS… the list goes on.

It's hard for me to argue against the thesis here-- that Harry Stonecipher and Phil Condit get the lion's share of the blame for where Boeing as a whole is today.

Suck was probably a poor choice of a word. Probably a better question would be. Why can't Boeing do what they used to do? Most people/businesses I know get better with experience yet Boeing is not.

Stepping back and looking at Boeing from the late 50's to the mid 90's it looks like they were the best, constantly making new models while upgrading existing ones. Mid 90's to now they have a hard time just upgrading existing models AND no plans for the next 10 +/- years to design and build a new one.

Art, can you explain more about how having an extra row could be so harmful? Too few seats makes intuitive sense to me. Too many, not so much.

Keep in mind there were mergers and changes along the way with Boeing....that has affected the culture. More specifically the Douglas addition.

There's a documentary called "Downfall" about how Boeing has changed over the years and mostly for the worse. It's pretty good and explains how the company went from an engineering company focused on making a really good, safe product to a company singularly focused on increasing shareholder value to the detriment of its engineering, manufacturing, and labor.

I think you can find it on Netflix.

Ethan

Art, can you explain more about how having an extra row could be so harmful? Too few seats makes intuitive sense to me. Too many, not so much.

It is not just Boeing who fits that category. Caterpillar, John Deere, Cummins, Weber manufacturing (the iconic grill people), GE, etc etc. Any and all of them would sell any of your body parts for a fractional increase in margin. The activist shareholder has undermined our manufacturing and development investments all in the name of dividends. No company wants to spend the money doing the heavy lifting. I saw it coming a decade ago when I was sitting in the then VPs office of a very large equipment manufacturer talking about the long term plan, she said to me, the long term strategic plan is to reduce the outlook horizon to 3 years, tie all R& D spending to a percentage of gross margin and increase the dividend so the CEO quits getting grilled over financial performance at the shareholder meetings. Now they just want to be a brand. They spend more on designing branded merchandise than developing new products. Who runs the company? An engineer.

"OEM's have a history of growing models until they can't."

The DC-8 , 727, and 737 are three examples. Easy to put "plugs" in the fuselage. Those who have flown these planes and haven't had the tail skid meet the runway raise your hands. I can't raise mine.

Delta’s former CEO said that Boeing was a ship without a rudder.

Their competition has a rudder.