I always loved traveling in the 146 – a cute little ride – which was particularly adept at short field operations (iirc, used heavily in London City Airport). The engines were unconventional in that the main fan was geared, so it ran at slower RPMs than the turbine shaft, making for relatively quiet operation.
737 is a very reliable airframe which has proven itself again and again in each successive iteration. I honestly think if they had anticipated and fixed these problems in the MAX software AND trained pilots there probably would not have been any problems with the newer engine configuration.
Anyhow, I guess it’s been a couple of decades since the last time Boeing had serious issues with the 737, but at the time, the news media was just as OMG sensationalist as it is over the MAX. Basically back in the early 90’s there was a series of incidents and accidents occurring in the 200 and 300 families, culminating with the crash of US Air 427, in which a 300 series aircraft suffered un-commanded rudder deflection on final approach resulting in a high velocity downward trajectory.
Boeing fixed that particular issue and it hasn’t happened since.
If it was marketed as simply being a ‘globe chair’ or some such thing, folks wouldn’t have know about the jet cowling connection. The spiral is about the only thing hinting at said connection.
There’s an extra really interesting ‘why’ buried in there, which is that the airframe changes were needed in order to fit larger engines while not increasing the height of the fuselage when the plane is on the ground. (With the original engine mounting and the larger engines, they’d have dragged on the ground when the plane taxis.)
I find this fascinating - they compromised the airworthiness of the plane to keep it low to the ground when it’s not flying. Why? Apparently, because airlines like the fuselage low so it’s easier to load luggage in.
Similarly, for the 777X, Boeing wanted a wider wingspan than the 777 (I’m guessing for efficiency again). But airports around the world have gates whose spacing was dictated by the wingspan of the 777. So to build a more efficient plane which can still use those gates, the 777X got folding wingtips. Hopefully, that won’t require any complicated computer assist systems like the 737-MAX…
