Captain Alexis Fecteau

Captain Alexis Fecteau recalls that a little over five years ago, the 777X family of Boeing reached a significant milestone – firm configuration of the 777-9. It marked a new era for the Boeing 777X team, airline customers, and key suppliers as they finally maximized the configuration of the new Boeing commercial aircraft. Image source: en.wikipedia.org Image source: seekingalpha.com For people new to the aviation industry, attaining firm configuration translates to the “completion of configuration trade studies to finalize the airplane’s capability and basic design,” a key requirement for clearance for production. Important phases of the project included processes such as wind tunnel testing and aerodynamic performance and structural load evaluation. Reaching firm configuration also means the next stage of the development, which involves the design and assembly of parts and systems of the 777X, can begin. In 2017, two years after reaching firm configuration, p...

Captain Alexis Fecteau, the Director of Marketing for Boeing Business Jets, a division of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, has made it a point to share with the rest of the world the many milestones of Boeing in the aviation industry. Through his series of blogs, he explores a number of topics that range from Boeing Business Jets to the company’s history. Image source: privatefly.com Image source: privatefly.com For today, Captain Alexis Fecteau looks back on one of the most impressive examples of Boeing’s commitment to technological advancement. This comes in the form of the wind tunnel testing for the highly-praised 777X model. For those unfamiliar with wind tunnel testing, the process is done to ensure that the plane will remain steady in the sky, where the winds are at their most brutal. Boeing’s best engineers and mathematicians created a new software program that essentially streamlines low-speed wind tunnel testing. Not only did this new software ensure the 777...