Originally Posted by
Australopithecus
Its just a shame Boeing didn’t have the time, available talent or money to leapfrog the 320 and set the stage for the next 50 years.
In a former life I was invited to take delivery of a brand new 757 in Renton in the 1990s ,bought by a friendly airline that no longer exists. It was with the standard VIP treat and included a lenghthy visit of the facilty , and the 737 and KC135s..were also built there alongside. It was very noisy , lots of debris on the floor, lots of mechanics in blue overall pushing rivets into holes made with eletrric drills. A year later I was shown the A320 assembly line in Toulouse Blagnac , workshop complety clean on white painted floor, robots working in silence , laser beams to align the parts together and a few mechanics in white blouses walking around with iPads.. OK that was 30 years ago, probably the 737 assembly line looks different today , but to "leapfrog Airbus for the next 50 years" would have needed quite a cultural and technological change at the time.