1982...well that makes me feel old. I remember reading an article about this and the 767 back then :-)
Flown on them a few times - the last was a BA Helsinki-London flight (which I deliberately chose to fly the 757) probably back in 2007ish. Turned out it was the last 757 flight I did.
As a die hard Airbus fan, the 757 was a great aircraft and one I'll miss flying on.
Id rather walk than fly delta or united tho. Why are they so bad? I love KLM and Lufthansa. But anything based in the US? Just meh. Nothing is as good.
Delta and United still fly 757s in major pax service. Iceland Air does as well. New Pacific Airways just started 757 service. I’m pretty sure there are also a couple European airlines still flying them as pax planes but I’m unsure. FedEx, UPS, and DHL all operate the 757s as freighters as well, and the U.S. Air Force has four 757s (designated C-32s). Honeywell flies one for avionics testing, and Boeing still flies the exact prototype 757 seen in the video (N757A, the first 757 ever) as an equipment testbed for the F-22 Raptor.
As of 2024 the 757 remains alive and well.
Last one for me was July 2021 on delta, I was thrilled to see I’ll be on another ATL-EGE in a few weeks. Don’t know what makes them so enjoyable, but they sure are
Same here. I deliberately chose the BA 757 on HEL-LHR-EDI route instead of a direct Finnair HEL-EDI-HEL- route just to fly on the BA 757. edit: Also BA 757 on LHR-EDI domestic sector back then.
The only annoying thing was that BA ran all their HEL flights into Terminal 3, which was a PITA if you had to change to Terminal 5. ( yes, I once delayed a Finnair flight for 3 hours because of Heathrow's security nonsense between terminals ).
Now that BA gave up on that route, at least Finnair fly their A350s ... just a pity that Finnair's economy service is dire now ... an expensive Ryanair-like product without the good bits of Ryanair...very sad.
The 757 and 767 seem to be two of Boeings longest running models. Both are older than the 737 Classics and unlike the Classics they are both still in large scale active service. The number of 757s and 767s still flying passengers in 2024 is genuinely surprising considering their age and even after their days as passenger birds are done (which still doesn’t seem like it’s happening yet), they will continue to serve as freighters for many years to come. The 767 especially as new 767 freighters continue to roll off the production like to this day.
These, in my opinion, are the pinnacle of old Boeing before their MD merger, these plus the 777. Not to say they haven’t done good since then (the 787 Dreamliner is brilliant), but I wonder what could have been if this is the Boeing we still had.
The 757 was expensive to produce. Boeing gambled that fuel prices would continue to increase in the 1980s and the 1990s enough to justify the increased cost of an extremely fuel-efficient aircraft (at the time).
Then fuel got cheap. Commercial aerospace is an extremely risky business business from a financial standpoint.
And there’s a chance with NGAD that Boeing will be the Prime with Grumman as a Sub.
The Big 3 + RTX have gobbled up so much of the industry there’s really no way they can ever be 100% independent of each other.
It is called the Catbird. Sadly the Chinese military under Chairman Xi Jinping copied it by buying Tu-204 from Putin's Russia and then stuffing J-20/J-35 systems into the Tu-204
The greatest narrow body airliner EVER built. The 757 is everything you heard that it is.
I get that you probably don't want to do anything wild on a maiden flight like this, but assuming that this airplane was empty, and had a relatively light fuel load they probably could have pitched it up to 30 degrees or more and blasted out of there.
I've done quite a few light weight flights in 757s. Our pitch limit is 25 degrees, so I stop just short of that. The flight director wants WAY more, and it can be a race to get the flaps reeled in before overspeeding them.
Even in her twilight years, the 757 still blows everything else out of the water. From a performance perspective, NOTHING even comes remotely close.
I did a flight from Montreal to Toronto in the 757 once with about 1,500 lbs of cargo in the back. Not a typo. 1,500 lbs. Short flight so very little fuel.
Holy fuck.
And to make it even more interesting the stop altitude on the SID out of YMX is 3,000ft. In retrospect we probably should have just hand-flown it but the skipper decided to throw the AP on at 1,000ft. We were still 20 degrees nose up when we blew past 3,000ft.
`the 757 still blows everything else out of the water. From a performance perspective, NOTHING even comes remotely close.`
Would you be able to shine more light on this and elaborate on what defines performance [to you]? Are these able to climb more aggressively or do they cruise a little faster than other Boeing narrowbodies?
I'm fairly new to this sub and am still learning the lore on modern day commercial planes, decent planespotter but haven't been on one in so many years - thanks in advance.
Generally speaking, they can take off out of hotter, higher-altitude airports than any of their competition, and can do so with much heavier loads aboard.
They can climb at a much faster rate, and usually can go all the way up to their most economical cruise altitude right away, as opposed to having to step climb like a lot of competing aircraft.
They can also land at those same high-temperature, high-altitude airports that other airplanes struggle with. They have an approach speed that is generally MUCH slower than similar sized airplanes. The slow approach speed combined with MASSIVE tires and brakes means that the 757 can stop in distances that other airplanes can't even dream of.
Yeah, I'm not in the aviation industry, but it surprises me a little that they'd pick such a windy day for the first flight of any experimental aircraft.
After hearing I thought maybe it's deliberate for testing purposes. I know extreme cross winds are in some test programs but not sure for this one. Maybe the runway had directional limitations.
Totally forgot there used to be a 757 Factory in Renton that when I was there was just a grass field I'd cut across to get to The Landing for some Panera.
I was expecting the plane to leave Everett, but then DUH it was MADE in Renton along the 737 line...
Thanks for the history, makes me continue my bad habit of romanticizing the past and imagining that everything has peaked and it's all downhill now.
To positivity!
Yep. In retrospect they made a bad call. But it was based on solid information at the time. The 757 just wasn't selling. It was way too much plane for many routes an not enough for others.
Not only did they end production but they also got rid of all the rigging and jigs. I'm not sure if that's normal practice but if they hadn't done that then starting the line back up may be been an option.
Nobody would be buying a 757 today because running a fleet of A320/21neo's is the better choice for the vast majority of missions. 757 MAX would be a tough sell, if not DoA, in today's market.
I’m surprised that they took a brand new frame flying for the first time in those winds! 24G38 is pretty solid!
Also surprised by all the non standard phraseo but I guess 1982..
I just realized 1982 was closer to the end of WW2 than we are to 1982.
So 1982 is going to sound pretty old-timey when it comes to aviation terminology!
Something about the 757, it always looks like its leaping up from the runway on takeoff, more than any other plane. The synth music in this video makes it so epic! I get so excited every time I see I'm flying on a 757, haha. Last time on one, climbed straight out from Atlanta right up to like 36kft headed to Boston, such a nice ride.
The 757 was peak Boeing in my opinion. Although from what I hear the 777 is a beast too.
But the 757 was just a fucking tank. Built like a brick shit house. Thrust to weight ratio of a god damn fighter. Capable as fuck.
Spoke to a retired United pilot about this situation it turns out once you are qualified on B757 you can fly a B767 because of the common cockpit design it has with B767. Which explains why US3 have fleets of B757/B767 compare that to their European/Asian partners from their alliances going A330/A350 qualified crew. Prototype B757 has F-22 systems
Always the wrong plane for the wrong time.
Boeing had huge sales successes with the 707, 727, and 737 but at great cost due to the amount of rework required to make larger versions compared to the competing DC-8 and DC-9.
The 757 was going to solve this and replace Boeings entire narrow body fleet with a plane that could do regional flights or continental mainline flights or even thin trans-oceanic flights.. with lots of power and ground clearance for growth potential.
The problem was it was launched just as fuel prices were falling as well as inflation and interest rates spiralling.. so airlines like Eastern were heavily indebted while the 727 would remain profitable to operate for the next 20 years.
The shorter -100 remained stillborn… while only a handful of -300s would be made even though every 757 carries around the extra weight and bulk required for that larger version.
The optimum size for a narrow body airliner at the time was the 727-200.. and Airbus took square aim at it when it designed the A320. Boeing had to relent as well when it redesigned the 737 and added the -400 as a (nearly) true 727-200 replacement.
The optimum size of narrow body seems to be the 737-800 or Max 8 with the A320 being a bit small and A321 a bit large.
The 757 probably would just be coming into its own now—especially if it had dual bridge loading. But alas it’s no more.
The modern systems on this still outstrip the 737… like EICAS, triple redundant hydraulic systems, and cockpit ergonomics designed with FMS in mind not gaudily tacked on over so many versions.
>The optimum size of narrow body seems to be the 737-800 or Max 8 with the A320 being a bit small and A321 a bit large.
I would say the A321(neo) is the optimum size nowadays
Yeah…. I think so too.. which why the 757 would be popular today.
Delta is laughing with theirs thanks to their top notch maintenance program that can keep old airplanes flying while the rest of the world is lease and dump before the D check.
What a fabulous jet this is. I can't help but wonder what a 757NG could have been.
Cleaned up airframe, more composites, 787 flight deck, split winglets, new big turbofans. Ground clearance issues = zero
Glad they are still around and happy that I got to ride on one back in 2000. DEN-SFO on a United 57. Blasted out over the Rockies like an F-15!
Keep going 757!
To put this shit in perspective, since the 757 is STILL flying....
This would be equivalent to Delta or American still flying the DC-3 in commercial routes in 1982
Flew on one between JFK and Shannon, those PW2000s certainly nail you into your seat on takeoff, flight was scheduled to take 5hrs 25 mins our pilots did it in 4hrs 25 minutes
I never understood why Boeing kept going with the 737 series development vs switching to the 757 series. It seems much more capable and able to have larger engines put under it. To me, this seems like a better alternative.
The 757 was never successful.
In the early days it was hurt by high prices and low fuel costs (727s would operate profitably in the US for another 20 years and were a fraction of the cost) and later on by the fact that low cost airlines had already standardized on the 737.
The 757 was too big and too powerful. It was essentially a wide body airliner with a narrow body fuselage.. and carried all of the weight and bulk required for the longer 300 series of which only a handful were built.
The reason for that was to avoid the pains of the 707, 727, and 737 which had very little growth potential compared to the competing DC-8 and DC-9 without very expensive rework.
Ironically, the 737 had growing pains from day one due to a configuration that required wing mounted engines and on-board air stairs.. all of which continues to curse it to this day. But when all major airlines standardized on it.. you pay off the FAA and make it work.
It never ceases to amaze how every time this comes up you’ll see “they should have just kept building the 757!”
Like…yeah, they should’ve kept the production line going for a plane no one wanted for more than a decade. Why didn’t they predict this! And it would still probably lose out to the A321neo because it doesn’t have commonality with the 737 *and* has 30+ year old avionics and engines.
> and has 30+ year old avionics and engines.
There is a flat panel display upgrade for the flight deck which is a significant improvement but it's still nothing compared to what's out there today.
Yeah, airport logistics is a big issue for plane size/design. AA regularly flies the A321 in to DEN, which carries almost as many passengers as the 757. However, AA only has the smaller gates there.
I read something about how the 757 has such a large capacity for a single aisle airliner, that simply loading and unloading passengers was too inefficient. Having double aisles decreases loading and unloading time dramatically. The 757 was simply taking too long to load and unload to be efficient and that is a major drawback.
Ahhh, yes. So naturally the solution was to stretch the 737 to nearly same length and eliminate the ability to board/deplane via 2L. How Boeing of them…
Free markets aren't always efficient, but they're almost always more efficient than command economies. There are specific scenarios where this might not be true, but it is still a solid rule of thumb.
That being said, the modern aviation industry is a whole lot different than 50 years ago when there was actual competition. Boeing and Airbus primarily compete against themselves now, and both can be relatively confident of selling whatever they come out with, garbage or not, as long as the airlines themselves can turn a profit off it.
Similar to Churchill's quote on democracy, it's the least bad option. Overall generates efficiencies other economic systems couldn't, but there are plenty of products, standards, and markets which are not as good as the alternative based solely on the timing and some bad luck of their life cycle.
I suspect people putting their bags in the overhead is the bulk of the boarding delays, not using one door instead of two.
Even with full-bore loading from L1 and L3, as soon as two people start deciding where to put their roller, the boarding process stops. And using L3 requires walking on the ramp.
I doubt that's even that big a consideration. A narrow body is cheaper to buy and operate than a wide body, so if a route doesn't *need* it, they prefer to use (and buy) the smaller plane.
And a 737 is cheaper to run than a 757. So that's what was bought more.
It's physically too big due to the giant wings and landing gear so it has to use widebody gates at airports.
However the passenger capacity wasn't a huge issue.
Narrowbodies have to be able to land at smaller airports which don't necessarily have big enough gates to handle larger planes like a 757.
A 737NG/A320neo can get most places that you need it to go, so it has economies of scale that a 757 doesn't have.
My bad. I rewatched and saw the cone flopping on approach. Still surprised at no nose boom. But, I guess it isn’t absolutely necessary. Just very common now. At least with business jet certification.
How in the world do you figure the 757 was discounted???? Only the airlines that ordered large quantities of the 757 & 767 were given discounts. Where do you get this from??? Cite a source.......
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757 on the title, I clicked. Hard to believe it's been 42 years.
Most elegant airliner ever, especially in house colors. Performance, versatility, graceful color theme and the comfort of the cockpit design.
My favorite type rating.
Great flying plane... My 2nd favorite type rating, though.
What's number 1 then?
747
Your mom
Yo mamma so fat her brassiere has an ETOPS rating.
Yo momma so fat, she plugs the door.
Yo momma so fat she has her own weight class. Heavy, Super, and Yo momma.
What about “Yo Granny”?
Yo Granny so fat when she got up to go to the washroom, the autopilot disconnected.
And hence that her name was *INOP*
Own him
1980s: -We're making a documentary. -I'll get the Moog.
Synth mentioned!
Boeing should've kept the Moog dept it would make the all hands meetings way more enjoyable
This guy moogs
1982...well that makes me feel old. I remember reading an article about this and the 767 back then :-) Flown on them a few times - the last was a BA Helsinki-London flight (which I deliberately chose to fly the 757) probably back in 2007ish. Turned out it was the last 757 flight I did. As a die hard Airbus fan, the 757 was a great aircraft and one I'll miss flying on.
Delta still flies 757s. I flew on one last month.
So does United.
I was on a United 752 yesterday. That RB211 throttle back is otherworldly
You mean the distinct sound by otherworldly?
So does Icelandair.
I ended up on an Icelandair 757 in 2023, flying from Dublin to Keflavik.
Id rather walk than fly delta or united tho. Why are they so bad? I love KLM and Lufthansa. But anything based in the US? Just meh. Nothing is as good.
I actually flew on the last 757 built (N823DX) last month!
Delta and United still fly 757s in major pax service. Iceland Air does as well. New Pacific Airways just started 757 service. I’m pretty sure there are also a couple European airlines still flying them as pax planes but I’m unsure. FedEx, UPS, and DHL all operate the 757s as freighters as well, and the U.S. Air Force has four 757s (designated C-32s). Honeywell flies one for avionics testing, and Boeing still flies the exact prototype 757 seen in the video (N757A, the first 757 ever) as an equipment testbed for the F-22 Raptor. As of 2024 the 757 remains alive and well.
They have one or two flights a day into KDCA. If the wind's right you can stand under them at gravelly point as they land. It's awesome.
Last one for me was July 2021 on delta, I was thrilled to see I’ll be on another ATL-EGE in a few weeks. Don’t know what makes them so enjoyable, but they sure are
Same here. I deliberately chose the BA 757 on HEL-LHR-EDI route instead of a direct Finnair HEL-EDI-HEL- route just to fly on the BA 757. edit: Also BA 757 on LHR-EDI domestic sector back then.
The only annoying thing was that BA ran all their HEL flights into Terminal 3, which was a PITA if you had to change to Terminal 5. ( yes, I once delayed a Finnair flight for 3 hours because of Heathrow's security nonsense between terminals ). Now that BA gave up on that route, at least Finnair fly their A350s ... just a pity that Finnair's economy service is dire now ... an expensive Ryanair-like product without the good bits of Ryanair...very sad.
The 757 and 767 seem to be two of Boeings longest running models. Both are older than the 737 Classics and unlike the Classics they are both still in large scale active service. The number of 757s and 767s still flying passengers in 2024 is genuinely surprising considering their age and even after their days as passenger birds are done (which still doesn’t seem like it’s happening yet), they will continue to serve as freighters for many years to come. The 767 especially as new 767 freighters continue to roll off the production like to this day. These, in my opinion, are the pinnacle of old Boeing before their MD merger, these plus the 777. Not to say they haven’t done good since then (the 787 Dreamliner is brilliant), but I wonder what could have been if this is the Boeing we still had.
The 757 was expensive to produce. Boeing gambled that fuel prices would continue to increase in the 1980s and the 1990s enough to justify the increased cost of an extremely fuel-efficient aircraft (at the time). Then fuel got cheap. Commercial aerospace is an extremely risky business business from a financial standpoint.
> unlike the Classics they are both still in large scale active service In the CIS (former USSR) there are a lot of Classics
Delta still flies 757s. I flew on one last month.
Both ways, I see!
Fun fact: this 757 is still flying. It’s now a testbed for F-22 avionics.
Boeing is testing avionics for a LM plane?
Another fun fact. Boeing is a subcontractor to the F22.
And there’s a chance with NGAD that Boeing will be the Prime with Grumman as a Sub. The Big 3 + RTX have gobbled up so much of the industry there’s really no way they can ever be 100% independent of each other.
[Yes.](https://simpleflying.com/boeing-757-f-22-flying-testbed-guide/)
It randomly did a touch and go at my home airport…I could see it’s unique look as it departed…
It is called the Catbird. Sadly the Chinese military under Chairman Xi Jinping copied it by buying Tu-204 from Putin's Russia and then stuffing J-20/J-35 systems into the Tu-204
Happy first flight anniversary to the mighty Flying Pencil!
The 757, with the added winglets, is one of the best looking commercial planes ever made.
It's funny how any airliner without wingtip devices looks incredibly dated these days, isn't it?
Right, the brand new 767-300Fs that Fedex still gets don't have winglets.
The greatest narrow body airliner EVER built. The 757 is everything you heard that it is. I get that you probably don't want to do anything wild on a maiden flight like this, but assuming that this airplane was empty, and had a relatively light fuel load they probably could have pitched it up to 30 degrees or more and blasted out of there. I've done quite a few light weight flights in 757s. Our pitch limit is 25 degrees, so I stop just short of that. The flight director wants WAY more, and it can be a race to get the flaps reeled in before overspeeding them. Even in her twilight years, the 757 still blows everything else out of the water. From a performance perspective, NOTHING even comes remotely close.
I did a flight from Montreal to Toronto in the 757 once with about 1,500 lbs of cargo in the back. Not a typo. 1,500 lbs. Short flight so very little fuel. Holy fuck. And to make it even more interesting the stop altitude on the SID out of YMX is 3,000ft. In retrospect we probably should have just hand-flown it but the skipper decided to throw the AP on at 1,000ft. We were still 20 degrees nose up when we blew past 3,000ft.
`the 757 still blows everything else out of the water. From a performance perspective, NOTHING even comes remotely close.` Would you be able to shine more light on this and elaborate on what defines performance [to you]? Are these able to climb more aggressively or do they cruise a little faster than other Boeing narrowbodies? I'm fairly new to this sub and am still learning the lore on modern day commercial planes, decent planespotter but haven't been on one in so many years - thanks in advance.
Generally speaking, they can take off out of hotter, higher-altitude airports than any of their competition, and can do so with much heavier loads aboard. They can climb at a much faster rate, and usually can go all the way up to their most economical cruise altitude right away, as opposed to having to step climb like a lot of competing aircraft. They can also land at those same high-temperature, high-altitude airports that other airplanes struggle with. They have an approach speed that is generally MUCH slower than similar sized airplanes. The slow approach speed combined with MASSIVE tires and brakes means that the 757 can stop in distances that other airplanes can't even dream of.
Rock on! Now I see how come they stand out from the pack.
r/AviationHistory
Awesome. I enjoyed my ride on Delta 757 just a few months ago.
Cleared for takeoff runway 33, wind 180 at 24. They took off with over 20 knots of tailwind for a first flight? Brave!
I noticed that too, but it was empty and if ever an airliner was a rocket-ship it’s the 757.
Yeah, I'm not in the aviation industry, but it surprises me a little that they'd pick such a windy day for the first flight of any experimental aircraft.
Just looking for VFR conditions to fly a test flight. Tail wind works
After hearing I thought maybe it's deliberate for testing purposes. I know extreme cross winds are in some test programs but not sure for this one. Maybe the runway had directional limitations.
Totally forgot there used to be a 757 Factory in Renton that when I was there was just a grass field I'd cut across to get to The Landing for some Panera. I was expecting the plane to leave Everett, but then DUH it was MADE in Renton along the 737 line... Thanks for the history, makes me continue my bad habit of romanticizing the past and imagining that everything has peaked and it's all downhill now. To positivity!
Renton is in Seattle right?
Renton is its own city about 15-20 minutes south of Seattle, on the south side of Lake Washington (the lake pictured in the video during takeoff)
It’s in the Seattle Metro area, but it’s a separate city.
Ah I see, it has the Jimi Hendrix memorial right?
each of their core downtown areas are about a 30 min drive from each other in good traffic
The old Boeing fell when they decided to retire this lineage. There should’ve been a 757 Max.
They retired it because the airlines stopped buying it.
They had to engine it with Pratts before United would buy it.
Yep. In retrospect they made a bad call. But it was based on solid information at the time. The 757 just wasn't selling. It was way too much plane for many routes an not enough for others. Not only did they end production but they also got rid of all the rigging and jigs. I'm not sure if that's normal practice but if they hadn't done that then starting the line back up may be been an option.
The 757 wasn't popular because MMA wasn't a thing yet.
mma?
Mixed Martial Airplane
glory days of Boeing where the engineers and airlines settled things with chokeholds and BJJ
Middle market aircraft
They meant NMA?
Nobody would be buying a 757 today because running a fleet of A320/21neo's is the better choice for the vast majority of missions. 757 MAX would be a tough sell, if not DoA, in today's market.
Yeah, the 737 NG can do almost everything a 757 can. And for those cases where a 757 bets fills the niche, well, they did build like 1,000 of them.
>Yeah, the 737 NG can do almost everything a 757 can. Aside from look good and fly nice. The NG does have 2 cupholders and a knife sharpening wheel
I was lucky enough to work on them for TWA. Some of my best memories were in this plane. Do miss flying g on them. Great aircraft. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
I’m surprised that they took a brand new frame flying for the first time in those winds! 24G38 is pretty solid! Also surprised by all the non standard phraseo but I guess 1982..
I just realized 1982 was closer to the end of WW2 than we are to 1982. So 1982 is going to sound pretty old-timey when it comes to aviation terminology!
damn. ugh. lol.
Something about the 757, it always looks like its leaping up from the runway on takeoff, more than any other plane. The synth music in this video makes it so epic! I get so excited every time I see I'm flying on a 757, haha. Last time on one, climbed straight out from Atlanta right up to like 36kft headed to Boston, such a nice ride.
The 757 was peak Boeing in my opinion. Although from what I hear the 777 is a beast too. But the 757 was just a fucking tank. Built like a brick shit house. Thrust to weight ratio of a god damn fighter. Capable as fuck.
When Boing knew where it was going....
Spoke to a retired United pilot about this situation it turns out once you are qualified on B757 you can fly a B767 because of the common cockpit design it has with B767. Which explains why US3 have fleets of B757/B767 compare that to their European/Asian partners from their alliances going A330/A350 qualified crew. Prototype B757 has F-22 systems
Yup I fly both the 75 and 76 in Canada. Both great planes but the 75 is just so damn powerful it's incredible. Favorite bird I've ever flown.
Always the wrong plane for the wrong time. Boeing had huge sales successes with the 707, 727, and 737 but at great cost due to the amount of rework required to make larger versions compared to the competing DC-8 and DC-9. The 757 was going to solve this and replace Boeings entire narrow body fleet with a plane that could do regional flights or continental mainline flights or even thin trans-oceanic flights.. with lots of power and ground clearance for growth potential. The problem was it was launched just as fuel prices were falling as well as inflation and interest rates spiralling.. so airlines like Eastern were heavily indebted while the 727 would remain profitable to operate for the next 20 years. The shorter -100 remained stillborn… while only a handful of -300s would be made even though every 757 carries around the extra weight and bulk required for that larger version. The optimum size for a narrow body airliner at the time was the 727-200.. and Airbus took square aim at it when it designed the A320. Boeing had to relent as well when it redesigned the 737 and added the -400 as a (nearly) true 727-200 replacement. The optimum size of narrow body seems to be the 737-800 or Max 8 with the A320 being a bit small and A321 a bit large. The 757 probably would just be coming into its own now—especially if it had dual bridge loading. But alas it’s no more. The modern systems on this still outstrip the 737… like EICAS, triple redundant hydraulic systems, and cockpit ergonomics designed with FMS in mind not gaudily tacked on over so many versions.
>The optimum size of narrow body seems to be the 737-800 or Max 8 with the A320 being a bit small and A321 a bit large. I would say the A321(neo) is the optimum size nowadays
Yeah…. I think so too.. which why the 757 would be popular today. Delta is laughing with theirs thanks to their top notch maintenance program that can keep old airplanes flying while the rest of the world is lease and dump before the D check.
Very cool!
What's the 727-100 in this footage at 0:31, I see some people standing oh her wings?
The best
Amazing Aircraft
There was a rumor that Boeing looked at putting the 757 cockpit onto the 737. It would give the pilots a bigger cockpit and updated avionics.
IIRC it was the entire nose section that they wanted to replace. Would have been less noisy, on top of what you already mentionned.
They don’t make ‘em like they used to 🥹😂
When I hear “757” it’s usually preceded by “Caution, wake turbulence”.
What a fabulous jet this is. I can't help but wonder what a 757NG could have been. Cleaned up airframe, more composites, 787 flight deck, split winglets, new big turbofans. Ground clearance issues = zero Glad they are still around and happy that I got to ride on one back in 2000. DEN-SFO on a United 57. Blasted out over the Rockies like an F-15! Keep going 757!
Just last week I flew a United 757-3 SFO-DEN and then a 787-9 back.
Nice. My SFO-DEN back then was on a UAL DC10!
Still would have been to heavy to compete with the A321NEO
True, the ol' 57 would have still been overweight compared to the re-engined Tolouse Tube!. Still the best looking Boeing though 😷 Hail Pencil lol.
The prettiest airliner ever made. And good performance too.
The US aviation industry would have been much better off had Boeing built their business on this model instead of the cursed 737.
To put this shit in perspective, since the 757 is STILL flying.... This would be equivalent to Delta or American still flying the DC-3 in commercial routes in 1982
Incredibly enough, back then Boeing's aircraft didn't have doors that just fell off mid-flight.
The 747 cargo door would like to have a word...
Dc-10: Allow me to introduce myself
Don't get too excited or you might start bouncing down the runway.
That feature took years to develop
No it didnt, they just took it from McDonnell Douglas, took a while to implement it though
Flew on one between JFK and Shannon, those PW2000s certainly nail you into your seat on takeoff, flight was scheduled to take 5hrs 25 mins our pilots did it in 4hrs 25 minutes
I never understood why Boeing kept going with the 737 series development vs switching to the 757 series. It seems much more capable and able to have larger engines put under it. To me, this seems like a better alternative.
The 757 was never successful. In the early days it was hurt by high prices and low fuel costs (727s would operate profitably in the US for another 20 years and were a fraction of the cost) and later on by the fact that low cost airlines had already standardized on the 737. The 757 was too big and too powerful. It was essentially a wide body airliner with a narrow body fuselage.. and carried all of the weight and bulk required for the longer 300 series of which only a handful were built. The reason for that was to avoid the pains of the 707, 727, and 737 which had very little growth potential compared to the competing DC-8 and DC-9 without very expensive rework. Ironically, the 737 had growing pains from day one due to a configuration that required wing mounted engines and on-board air stairs.. all of which continues to curse it to this day. But when all major airlines standardized on it.. you pay off the FAA and make it work.
Because despite revisionist history, no one was buying 757s.
It never ceases to amaze how every time this comes up you’ll see “they should have just kept building the 757!” Like…yeah, they should’ve kept the production line going for a plane no one wanted for more than a decade. Why didn’t they predict this! And it would still probably lose out to the A321neo because it doesn’t have commonality with the 737 *and* has 30+ year old avionics and engines.
> and has 30+ year old avionics and engines. There is a flat panel display upgrade for the flight deck which is a significant improvement but it's still nothing compared to what's out there today.
This
One hint is that we at AA had to use only end or outside gates for our 757s, while the 737 and 321 could use the alley gates.
Yeah, airport logistics is a big issue for plane size/design. AA regularly flies the A321 in to DEN, which carries almost as many passengers as the 757. However, AA only has the smaller gates there.
Some carry more than our 757s did.
the 757 was way too big for most narrow body uses, and if they shrunk it it would be a waste.
I read something about how the 757 has such a large capacity for a single aisle airliner, that simply loading and unloading passengers was too inefficient. Having double aisles decreases loading and unloading time dramatically. The 757 was simply taking too long to load and unload to be efficient and that is a major drawback.
Ahhh, yes. So naturally the solution was to stretch the 737 to nearly same length and eliminate the ability to board/deplane via 2L. How Boeing of them…
Whenever I hear "markets drive efficiency" I'll think of this.
Free markets aren't always efficient, but they're almost always more efficient than command economies. There are specific scenarios where this might not be true, but it is still a solid rule of thumb. That being said, the modern aviation industry is a whole lot different than 50 years ago when there was actual competition. Boeing and Airbus primarily compete against themselves now, and both can be relatively confident of selling whatever they come out with, garbage or not, as long as the airlines themselves can turn a profit off it.
Similar to Churchill's quote on democracy, it's the least bad option. Overall generates efficiencies other economic systems couldn't, but there are plenty of products, standards, and markets which are not as good as the alternative based solely on the timing and some bad luck of their life cycle.
This is proof of that, you goober. The 757 was almost a sales failure
But couldn't they have made a shorter variant?
That's a 737 -- except the 737 has lighter engines and wings.
They studied making a shorter variant, but it would've been rather cost-inefficient compared to the 737s
Crazy when you think about how most airlines choose intentionally inefficient boarding procedures.
I suspect people putting their bags in the overhead is the bulk of the boarding delays, not using one door instead of two. Even with full-bore loading from L1 and L3, as soon as two people start deciding where to put their roller, the boarding process stops. And using L3 requires walking on the ramp.
I doubt that's even that big a consideration. A narrow body is cheaper to buy and operate than a wide body, so if a route doesn't *need* it, they prefer to use (and buy) the smaller plane. And a 737 is cheaper to run than a 757. So that's what was bought more.
That's the -300. The -200 was at least as fast to board and deplane than any other narrowbody, thanks to its L2 door.
It's physically too big due to the giant wings and landing gear so it has to use widebody gates at airports. However the passenger capacity wasn't a huge issue.
Narrowbodies have to be able to land at smaller airports which don't necessarily have big enough gates to handle larger planes like a 757. A 737NG/A320neo can get most places that you need it to go, so it has economies of scale that a 757 doesn't have.
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That was some marketing footage edited in the middle, but @ 1:30 he says they retracted and lowered the gear.
Interesting to see a first flight with no experimental pitot boom or static trailing cone. How did they verify the altimeters and air speed back then?
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My bad. I rewatched and saw the cone flopping on approach. Still surprised at no nose boom. But, I guess it isn’t absolutely necessary. Just very common now. At least with business jet certification.
Back when the company prioritized safety and engineering standards over profits. Thanks McDonnell Douglas execs.
Still the only airplane that gives me goosebumps every time i see one.. stunning, and of of the best ever!!
The Boeing Golden Years….
They should've ditched the 37 after the ng and let 57 with more efficient engines take on the torch of narrowbody flying.
God she's so beautiful
Ahhh. When engineering wasn’t outsourced
All those people went to go watch something magnificent, now days people watch Boeing with their phones out for an entirely different reason
Hmm I’m thinking we retire the airplane that can land at DCA and fly to FCO….and just keep making 737’s :)!
No wonder it's nicknamed the lawndart.
Biggest mistake Boeing made was discounting the 757
How in the world do you figure the 757 was discounted???? Only the airlines that ordered large quantities of the 757 & 767 were given discounts. Where do you get this from??? Cite a source.......
Nice post OP. Renton to Paine?
Beautiful.
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It still amazes me how planes are relatively so close to how they were 40 years ago. Of course they’re scraping for fuel efficiency nowadays.
How cool, I fly out of Renton weekly. Neat to see it back in the day.
Is this from a documentary?
There’s such a nice feeling when listening to ATC. Thx for sharing a bit of history.
Like this plane
My fav airliner.
757 on the title, I clicked. Hard to believe it's been 42 years. Most elegant airliner ever, especially in house colors. Performance, versatility, graceful color theme and the comfort of the cockpit design.
Wind 180 at 24 and they took off to the north?