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In the wake of recent Pratt and Whitney engine failures on Boeing 777s and the subsequent grounding of fleets, I have seen renewed calls online to retire early 777-200 variants. I'm not enough of an expert on the situation to decide whether such a move is good safety or good economics. But the thought of retiring early 777s is an interesting one in other ways.
I've loved planes as long as I can remember. My mother served in the US Air Force in the late 1970s, and my father, whose own dad was a B-29 instructor in the Second World War, has had a passion for warbirds for decades. Almost as soon as I learned to read, my parents bought me books about planes. At the time, the air was dominated with the likes of the Boeing 747, the McDonnell-Douglas DC-10 and the Airbus A300, and I pored over pictures of them. But in some of those early books, I also got to read about Boeing's latest widebody jetliner: the 777.
The 777 entered service in 1995, and while I was still very young back then, I remember hearing about the type and seeing it depart San Francisco when my family took vacations there. I read about the cutting-edge computer technology used in its development, innovations in wing and fuselage design, its unique six-wheel main gear bogies, and the massive engines whose nacelle cross-section dwarfed the engines of any other aircraft of the day. The 777 truly was the latest, greatest thing.
In 2021, on the other hand, the 777 is considered outdated, fuel-inefficient, and an inferior choice for ETOPS operations compared to jets such as the Boeing 787 or the Airbus A350. The 777 has now become the older, lesser aircraft, the same place that the DC-10 and A300 were in when Boeing wanted to edge them out with the 777 to begin with.
This gives me pause for thought. I'm now at a point in my life where I've seen the rise of new technologies to replace systems that existed when I was born, only for those new technologies themselves to become outdated and obsolete, ultimately replaced with even newer technologies. Cassette-based media such as the VHS was replaced with the DVD and Blu-Ray disc, only for those formats to be usurped by streaming services. All my friends dreamed of owning their own laptop when they were kids, only to grow up and want a tablet instead.
The same applies to popular culture, of course. The animated Batman of the 1990s was blown out of the water by Christian Bale's rendition of the character in the Dark Knight trilogy of the late 2000s and early 2010s--which is now considered outdated compared to Ben Affleck's portrayal in the modern DC EU. The original Star Wars trilogy was thought of as old fluff when the darker, bleaker prequel trilogy was released, and now the prequel trilogy is considered melodramatic and corny when compared to the sequel trilogy. The Disney Renaissance of the '90s was thought of by all to breathe new life into a company that had been on the decline since its founder's death, and now the Renaissance is seen as a classic era to which the 3D-animated Pixar generation pays tribute.
This is indicative of the experience I've had in the world since I was born, and a definite sign that in terms of culture, I am now getting old. I had an understanding of the world as one way, that understanding changed with new technological and social paradigms, and now those "new" paradigms are themselves being replaced by newer paradigms. I was young when the first changes happened, and I felt that my generation was the forefront of those changes. But now, during the second set of changes, I'm no longer the young one. And if anything makes me feel old, it's that fact.
I had no concept of this when I was little. I thought of growing up and feeling "old" as having a job, a house, maybe some kids, and nothing more. But I'm beginning to understand now that feeling my age isn't just a matter of subtracting my birth year from the current year. It's a matter of understanding what the world used to be like, and seeing how people younger than myself have no concept of that world. They're totally disconnected from my experiences at their age, and the very idea of the world being that way is foreign to them, when I remember it so vividly.
The weirdest part of all to think about? That disconnect is only going to become stronger from here on. I'd better buckle up.
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[Last updated: 2021-10-28]