Originally Posted by
Maninthebar
Of course, no discussion would be that short but we know that at least some of the decisions were driven by customer desire not to have to pay for extra training so the equation around gear length may have been something like
extra gear length requires $$ extra engineering plus customers wont like it versus we are fitting new engines anyway so why not beef up the s/w to manage the change on aero qualities
Maninthebar, 568, Fortissimo: I get it, folks. I didn't say that it's difficult to imagine
Boeing making the choice, rather that it's difficult to imagine engineers making it, as an engineering solution, absent real pressure from the bean counters and marketing team.
Of course, if not for such pressure, engineers would likely not have chosen to try to squeeze out yet another airplane under type certificate A16WE.