Originally Posted by
WHBM
How does it take so long to design the things nowadays ? 9 years ? Did Boeing, with the 737 entering service in 1968, start designing it in 1959 ? Where is all the advantage that billions of dollars of investment in CAD products gives over our grandfathers with drawing boards, crew-cuts, and new Studebakers out in the parking lot ?
Well, no they didn't - but with the 737 they re-used some components and tooling from the 707 and 727 (and indeed the 747) for the airframe itself, so some aspects of it had been around since the early '50s.
If you're talking about a completely new design carrying over very little from earlier projects then it stands to reason that it will take longer. The A320 project grew from a concept that started in 1977 and it first flew in 1984 - but even that borrowed aspects from a Hawker-Siddeley design that dated back to 1965(!)
Boeing's last major narrow-body development was the 757, which started back in the mid-'70s. I don't know what they've been working on internally, but the company has appeared to focus primarily on widebodies for the last 30 years.