One way to make it lighter would be to disallow (or charge extra) for the morbidly obese to fly on it.

I remember first hearing about the Dreamliner project in FORTUNE magazine about, oh, 15 years ago in regards to how Boeing engineers were using computers to draft the thing. It's staggering how big and capital intensive a project like this is.

Boeing Commercial Airplanes Chief Executive Scott Carson said that Airbus will emerge as a healthier manufacturer from troubles with the delayed A380 superjumbo and redesigned midsize A350 XWB, or Xtra Wide Body.
"I say Airbus emerges from this stronger than they've ever been, and we better be ready for it," Carson said during a Webcast presentation for investors.
Airbus is expected to end this year with 425 to 430 plane deliveries, which would be the fourth consecutive year that its deliveries surpassed Boeing's.
"At the end of last week we had delivered 399 airplanes," Airbus North America Chief Executive and President Barry Eccleston said Wednesday. "For both us and Boeing, it's a very healthy marketplace."
But it has been in orders for planes in 2006 that Boeing has stretched its lead, with 823 orders through November, compared with Airbus' 635 -- a roughly 56% to 44% advantage.
"Cycle or no cycle, our objective is to maintain [Boeing Commercial Airplanes] as a profitable enterprise," Carson added.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/boeing-executive-wary-rebound-airbus/story.aspx?guid=%7B63DAA7F6%2D9F6D%2D46E7%2DAE5D%2DADECC9F6033E%7D

Dude, I'm not sure I understand the obsession with French technology by OJ. In certain areas, the French are way ahead of us (nuclear power, for example). Ours isn't always so great (Challenger, Three Mile Island, the Pinto). So what did the French ever do to you?

The other obsession here seems to be with Europe's low birth rates and their supposed orgin in the horrible evil of secularism. Sorry, but there is no correlation between religious faith and birth rates:

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NmFmODg4NDExZTc5MGQ0NjljMWQ4ZDRhY2IwNTRmYWM=

and

http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2006/11/post-christian-europe-part-ii.php

The alarmist "Eurabia" is nonsense. If nothing else, birth-rates in the Muslim world are already falling very quickly. Tunisia snd Iran have lower birth-rates than France nowadays, and Algeria's is almost exactly the same.

So my advise to you is: relax, chill out and stop hating people who aren't as religious as you are.

Nuclear isn't technologically advanced, even the Norks and Pakistanis have it.

Yes, the French model has failed just as miserably as the Islamic. The choice not to breed is perfectly rational for societies with no future.

It's easy to chill given that we've won. The folks who are upset about the Eurabia nonsense are the ones who think Europe worth saving. It isn't.

You still haven't explained why you hate the French. What did they ever do to you? Look down their long Gallic noses at you and made you feel like a rube or a hick?

If nuclear isn"t so advance why can't Americans manage it?

Eurabia is nonsense becasue it is never going to happen, not because an Islamic Europe is a "good" thing. It would be an awful thing to see a civilized and cultured continent taken over by ignorant religious fanatical savages:

http://digg.com/videos_people/Interview_with_Saudi_executioner?cshow=

No one hates the French, we hold them in contempt. Their society veered off course in the Enlightenment and they've been in decline since the Revolution. They don't matter much, but, unfortunately, their faith in Reason gave rise to all the murderous rationalisms of Modernity--Socialism, Communism, Darwinism, Freudianism, Nazism, Islamicism, etc...

Europe will just replace the current savages with new ones. At least the new ones bear a culture.

"What did they ever do to you?" Lucky for us there's nothing the French can do to us except disgust us.

For me, Klaus Barbi, the Butcher of Lyons, giving up the Jewish orphans to the Nazi's can never be forgiven.

All the rest of their posturings, while amusing, are irrelevant.

The French are ahead of us in technology? Whew!

All their nuclear power technology was licensed to them by Westinghouse over 30 years ago. They do things we don't do, like fuel re-processing and fast neutron reactors, but it's not like they developed these ideas on their own - they came from Oak Ridge and Richland. BTW, they have never made their fast reactor (the Super-Phenix) work very well, and I believe it has been shut down permanently.

"Civilized and cultured continent"?

The Dutch government just this week awarded honors to their troops who stood by and watched the massacre of over 7000 men and boys at Srebernica. Other 'cultures' in the world would have handled things differently, no?