Talking about the wave of identity thefts sweeping the country, think of the skies filled with jets that change their identities with the click of a reworked computerized design.

 

New and Improved 747

So far, the Boeing 737 workhorse has evolved from the “100” version to the latest “900” model and in the process has added a lot of length. And now the aerospace giant is trotting out a stretch jumbo jet, the 747-8, that will put new life into what seemed like a dying plane—and drive aircraft spotters crazy with yet another example of the same plane with extended fuselage and altered designation.

 

During World War II, kids studied—or fashioned with scissors and paper—the silhouettes of Japanese Zeroes, Luftwaffe Messerschmitts, British Spitfires, and our own Flying Fortresses and Republic Thunderbolts, and had classroom tests to see who could get them all right.

 

For several postwar decades the spotters could play the identity game and mostly win—with jet profiles neat and recognizable. Two engines, four engines, engines under the wing, engines flanking the tail, as well as high versus low tails and distinct noses of various designs.

 

Those were the good old days for business travelers who liked to guess what they were flying on. Usually no questions were asked when booking a flight—like “What’s the equipment, an A319 or 757?”—as happens today.      

 

Not even the savviest plane spotter now knows what’s what as Boeing and Airbus tinker with original designs to get more sales mileage out of their best products. And in the process the profiles change without much public fanfare—from short to longer and longer, combined with interior alterations from better galleys to improved avionics in the cockpit. Call it aerospace surgery—like cosmetic surgery—except that it’s a body stretch more often than a nose job.

 

To Stretch—or Build

 

Sometimes the manufacturer faces a split in the design road: stretch an existing model or build an entirely new jet.

 

That was the case with the wide-bodied, longer-range Triple Seven. In 1989 Boeing initially considered simply stretching the existing 767 to expand its capacity and range. But after talking with potential customers, the Seattle giant concluded that there was a market for an entirely new aircraft positioned between the 767-300 and the 747-400. Pursuing that course, Boeing ended up with one of the most successful planes ever built.  

 

Not all of the revisions are passenger models. Cargo jets are big moneymakers and get plenty of engineering attention. FedEx alone has the second largest jet fleet in the United States, after American Airlines.

 

But with different requirements on different routes, airline customers often choose a little of this and a little of that—like diners browsing a buffet to decide what to eat.

 

For instance, Korean Air, a first-rate contender on international routes, recently ordered two 737-900s, the very latest of the popular jet’s many models; four wide-bodied 777-300s with a range longer than the original models, and two 747-8s, a current best seller that Korean will use as freighters. The order noticeably snubbed Airbus.

 

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Aerospace giant Boeing considered stretching the 767 but ended up building a new 777.

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Airlines as Seat Gurus

Remodeling isn’t an easy step to take. It has to do more with the guts of a jet—not only length but also updated avionics and more fuel-efficient engines—than the cabin furnishings and entertainment gadgetry at your seat.

 

How a cabin is configured and furnished is up to the airline customer.  For instance, in its competition with the gigantic Airbus A380, an avowed double-decker, Boeing has bet on its customer preferences and stuck with its basic 747 model with a main single deck and a smaller upper deck.

 

Where else in the world could you find a wide-bodied jet with a sofa feel like a Westin heavenly mattress? And with a hump up top that could be described as the ugliest beautiful contour you’ve ever seen? But the awkward profile has made the 747 one of the easiest jets to recognize.

 

Airline customers use the upstairs hump in radically different ways: as a Business Class section or an Economy dumping ground or even as a sophisticated lounge. In a reversion to the roomier earlier days of flying, the former Belgian airline Sabena used part of the upper deck of two 747s (internally called “A” and “B”) as a cocktail lounge with the hemispherical walls (following the curved roof of the plane) covered by oil paintings done by Belgian artists.      

 

The 737 Relic Remodeled

Few of the familiar planes you ride around in have been untouched by remodeling.

 

Take the Darwinian theory of the survival of the fittest, apply it to the Boeing 737, and you have the record-breaking workhorse of the skies.  The authentic original, dating to 1968, has been left behind in a race to stretch—and stretch still more—the fuselage to please a waiting audience of airlines that want to pack ‘em in.

 

Near its birth in the late 1960s, the 737 had a fast pregnancy due to Boeing’s rivals in the short-range, small-capacity jetliner market pioneered by the Douglas DC-9 and British Airways L-11. Boeing designed its first 737 with 60 to 85 seats but rapidly jacked up the seat count to 100 under pressure from the “launch customer,” Lufthansa.

 

To speed development, Boeing borrowed the blueprints of the existing 727’s structure and systems, especially the fuselage cross-section, that would permit six-abreast seating compared to the rivals’ five-seat configuration.

 

With the 737-100 barely airborne and only 30 produced, Boeing switched to a stretch 737-200 version—its maiden flight followed the 100 by a mere four months—in response to United, its launch customer, and the preference of other customers.

Getting Engine Clearance

The 200 made it all the way to 1988, nearly 20 years, without stretching. But it became known as the 737-200 Advanced, what with one improvement after another.

 

Most of the changes involved engine technology. When better engines came along, Boeing engineers had to take the 737’s low ground clearance into account. They placed the improved engines ahead of rather than below the wing and moved engine accessories from below the engine to the sides of the engine pod. For jet-model plane spotters, you could tell the 200’s identity partly by viewing the squarish rather than circular air intakes.         

 

In 1993, prompted by the notable success of the wide-bodied Airbus A320 (the choice for JetBlue’s fleet), Boeing began offering customers a new 737-NG (Next Generation) in three flavors: a 737-600, 737-700 and 737-800. The series of model upgrades has ended up beating the “Classic” 737’s sales record.

 

“Flying Football”

Like people who become folk heroes, the 737 has picked up a lot of colloquial names. Originally it looked like a small 707, so it was called “The Baby Boeing.” It also got the nickname “Fat Albert” because it was a foot longer than the wing span. And some people called it the “flying football” because it looked that way.

 

In any case, a year ago Boeing celebrated a milestone by delivering the 5,000th 737 to Southwest. All of this while second-tier airlines, mostly in Third World countries, continue to pick up earlier 737 models at a bargain price. Most of the early 737 birds face extinction despite hush kits (to reduce noise), high fuel costs and expensive maintenance costs.

 

Recently, the chameleon-like 737 has moved on to a 737-900. Boeing hints that there will be a “clean sheet” replacement for the 737 after the launch of the long-range, fuel-efficient Dreamliner 787. 

 

In 2000 Alaska Airlines began flying the 737-900—it had been the launch airline in 1997—and plane spotters might have wondered how the 900 had expanded cabin capacity of the 737 to 185 seats, almost twice the nearly original 200 model.

 

There’s an interesting twist to the 900 story: In a single-class layout it can accommodate 215 passengers, the passenger capacity of the discontinued 757-200, and fly farther because of added fuel capacity and winglets, those quirky add-ons at the end of jet wings. Those winglets, from a plane spotter’s viewpoint, are the best thing to come along in years.

 

And note that among the variants of the basic 737 model is the Boeing Business Jet, the largest private jet the new billionaire class of executive flyers can buy. There’s one feature plane spotters can’t see except by invitation only: the cabin interior as cushy and well-appointed as a Park Avenue apartment.