Fuel efficiency dives as you approach the speed of sound, airliners were already going as close as you’d want to in the 70’s. Since then planes have slowed down slightly and overall fuel efficiency has gone up considerably.
Don’t make things up based on your gut feelings.
Regarding the speed, we even had the Concord and lost it (and never improved upon it either).
>Don’t make things up based on your gut feelings
Analysts, Boeing insiders, and industry executives have spoken about the skills issue.
Don't make things up based on your gut feelings.
We did, actually. Which is why the 777 is still being built, and the 747 is not.
> (and slow as molasses to be designed and created compared to the 1960s) new plane designs are plagued with tons of issues.
Actually, the rate of airline accidents and deaths has decrease drastically since the 60s. We can look at [1].
Average airline accidents over the 60-70 period: 65.5 accidents a year, for an average of 1400 deaths a year.
Average airline accidents over the 2011-2021 period: 20.1 accidents a year, for an average of 326.5 deaths a year.
So just on pure numbers, the improvements are undeniable. What is hidden in those statistics is that the world air passenger traffic increase more than 60 fold since the 60s.
[1] https://asn.flightsafety.org/statistics/period/stats.php
The 777 design itself is over 3 decades old by this point - not exactly an argument for how better we fare now. That would be for the 787 - if such an argument could be made. As for 777X, it'ss still facing issues before even launching.
As for the 747 design, far from a failure, it served for like 60 years or so, and 747 models were still being produced until recently (and for 373, there are also more in service than any later model).
>*Actually, the rate of airline accidents and deaths has decrease drastically since the 60s.
The improvements still occurred with the majority of the planes in 2011-2021 still being the same old 40 and 50+ year old runs (they are not merely explained away by new designs replacing the old). So what part of it was improvements in radars, monitoring, ATC, and so on rather than new plane designs?
And how many of the airliners in the olden years were smaller propeller aircraft and not the jet designs under discussion? (most routes in my parts sure were still up to 1990 at least).
They were, in fact, going to close to it. Which is why they now cruise at lower speeds.
> Since then planes have slowed down slightly and overall fuel efficiency has gone up considerably.
Absolutely.
