BOEING AIRCRAFT - 777 Worldliner

The Boeing 777 is a long-range wide-body twin-engine jet airliner with a range of 5,235 to 9,380 nautical miles. It is the world’s largest twinjet and has a typical seating capacity of 314 to 441 passengers. The 777 was designed with the efforts of eight major airlines with the specific purpose of replacing older wide-body airlines and bridge the difference between Boeing’s 767 and 747. Its distinguishing features are the largest turbofan engines of any aircraft, six wheels on each main landing gear, a circular fuselage cross-section and a blade-shaped tail cone. There are many variants of the 777, beginning with the introduction of the 777-200 to commercial service in 1995, followed by the extended range 777-200ER in 1997. The stretched 777-300 (33.3 ft. longer) entered service shortly thereafter in 1998. In 2004 and 2006, Boeing introduced the longer-range 777-300ER and the 777-200LR variants. The latest version of the aircraft, the freighter version, was introduced in 2009.

The long-range and freighter models of the aircraft have General Electric GE90 engines and extended raked wingtips. The 777-200, -200ER, and -300 models carry either GE90, Pratt & Whitney PW4000, or Rolls-Royce Trent 800 engines. It is the first entirely computer-designed commercial aircraft, featuring many new technologies. These include: fully digital fly-by-wire controls, fully software-configurable avionics, Honeywell LCD glass cockpit flight displays, and the first use of fiber optic avionics network on a commercial airliner.

The 777 has traditional control yokes as opposed to sidestick controllers, and incorporates flight envelope protection, which guides pilot input within a computer-calculated framework of operating parameters. The wings of the aircraft feature a supercritical foil design (optimized for cruising at Mach 0.83) with increased thickness and a longer span. The airframe of the jet also incorporates composite material, including the cabin and the rudder. As for its landing gear, it is the largest ever used on a commercial jetliner, and features triple redundant hydraulic systems.