Boeing Earns Conditional Approval for 777-X Folding Wingtips
Jeff Edwards May 23, 2018
Los Angeles, United States - March 9, 2015: Boeing manufactuing facility. Boeing manufactures and sells aircraft, rotorcraft, rockets and satellites. It is the second-largest defense contractor in the world.
Boeing’s revolutionary designs for the new 777-X, with a wingspan of more than 230 feet, got a boost when the FAA gave conditional approval for the use of folding wingtips potentially making the passenger jet much more versatile than the Airbus A380.
The whopping 72-meter wingspan of the Boeing 777-X offers certain obvious advantages when it comes to fuel efficiency. Unfortunately, as Airbus learned with the industry-leading 79.8-meter (262-foot) wingspan on the A380 aircraft, the airport restrictions resulting from such a lengthy wingtip-to-wingtip distance certainly aren’t viewed as an advantage by potential customers.
Perhaps learning its lesson from the Airbus A380 woes, Boeing included a novel feature in the designs for its new family of 777-X aircraft. The plane’s impressive wingspan will shrink a remarkable 7 meters (23-feet) between landing and reaching the terminal. Boeing has accomplished this magic trick by including folding wingtips as a standard feature on the new jetliner. This week, the FAA offered conditional approval of the revolutionary new wing designs.
Designs call for the “folding” wingtips to rotate skyward while the plane is on the ground – thereby trimming nearly 24-feet from the length of each wing. Understandably, regulators felt compelled to place some caveats on final approval of the concept.
According to Bloomberg, Boeing agreed to incorporate a series of lockouts and alarms to eliminate any chance of an aircraft attempting to take off while the wingtips are stowed or of the wingtips being inadvertently folded in flight. The aircraft manufacturer also indicated there are no current or future plans to store jet fuel in the area of the wingtip.
[Photo: Shutterstock]
