Why did big airplanes go from four engines to two engines?
In: Engineering
Answer: Planes were getting larger and larger by the time 4 engines rolled around for dominant use, but eventually they reached a peak efficiency for routes versus passenger fares. Deregulation had made the market flooded with cheaper alternatives after the mail carrier industry was upset with the likes of UPS/Fedex flying mail forcing the airlines to drop fairs to increase ridership. This has led to decades of statistics and modifications to see exactly how many humans can be squeezed in a given seating arrangement for a given utility payload of the aircraft in question. Unlike the other top comment, the aircraft design was an answer to the industry only needing so much thrust and the engines being far more capable and efficient than in the past. To one commenter’s point, there is a bit of stigma around single engine operation, but it’s a layperson/flying-public’s perspective, since every good pilot knows if one of your two engines goes, the good one will take you safely to the crash site. To that point, somewhere between an abundance of precautions and peak capitalism, we have settled on maximum capacity in an airframe powered by two over-powered engines that could singularly power the flight, all governed by seating (unless you’re smart like Southwest and have min-maxed into a single airframe for synergies in maintenance, parts, and training savings.
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