777

Ron Resnick (rresnick@dialogosweb.com)
Sat, 20 Jun 1998 21:25:17 -0400


How recently did Boeing 777s go into commissioned service?
I don't remember reading anything about it.

I'm sitting on one right now, United 147, Chicago-San Francisco, brand
spanking new.

Personal TV sets (in coach!), but no inflight phones - that seems
quite bizarre, no?

And, of course,the inflight magazine is useless. It doesn't
list the aircraft in the United fleet, so there's no clue
when they introduced 777, or how many they have. Maybe I'll check
the website when I'm connected...

Sort of creepy. Everything I've ever read till now about the 777
is about its revolutionary new 'paperless design'. Boeing
is probably one of the top 5 companies using CORBA. The whole
thing was distributed CAD, distributed simulation, etc. Knowing what I
know about the state of industrial distributed software design,
I'd rather pontificate in theory about it than fly on an airplane
built with all that shit ;-).

[Well, anyway, here I am safely on the ground, sending this email,
so I guess 777 has got me this far.]

Ron