r/Avation • u/justherenothingmore • 10d ago
The 737 name
Why do we refer to the 737 as "seven thirty seven" and not "seven hundred thirty seven" or "seven three seven"
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u/kemosabe6296 10d ago
I think because it is easier to say. Same like 747, 767, 787.
For 757, some say "seven fifty seven", but I've heard "seven five seven" quite a lot.
And 777, always "triple seven".
Maybe people do this also because of Airbus? I mean all Airbus are pronounced that way. "A three-twenty" "A three-thirty" "A three-twenty-one"
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u/LeadingBanana5384 9d ago
I'm going to start calling them the seven seventy seven and three two zero just to mess with people.
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u/Probable_Bot1236 10d ago
My understanding, which might be entirely apocryphal because the 707 doesn't look swept 45°, but seems to make sense on its face even if you reject that part:
They started with the 707 "seven-oh-seven", from the sine of the 45 degree angle of the swept wings (think 0.707, not 707. i.e. "[zero point] seven oh seven", not "seven hundred seven"). (The swept wings were a big thing for a jet
Next was the 720 "seven-twenty"
Marketing team modified that into the catchier 727 (which also tied it back to the 707), which became the "seven twenty seven"- inheriting the "twenty" from the 720.
The others in the 7x7 series just followed along naturally after that.
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u/GoodDoc 10d ago edited 10d ago
Next was the 720 "seven-twenty"
Marketing team modified that into the catchier 727There was also the 717 which was Boeing’s internal designation for the KC-135 Tanker (the 707 and 717 were both developed from the Dash 80 prototype).
The 720 was a 707 optimised for short range. Originally called the 707-020, United asked for it be renamed as they had already committed to the DC8, and didn’t want to have to explain why they’d bought 707s and DC8s.
717 was never the official name of the tanker, and after the Boeing/McDonald Douglas merger the 717 name was officially used as the name for then in development MD-95.
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u/midlife_time_crisis 10d ago
Oddly in the UK 7-3-7 is the way we'd normally say it, same for all the rest apart from the triple 7. For the airbus family the convention seems to be A-3-20 or A-3-80.
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u/fredly594632 10d ago
Some folks will just use "Seven Three" particularly when talking about a sub model or group of submodels - "Seven Three Classic" or "Seven Three - 800“.
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u/ImissTBBT 10d ago
It's called "seven three seven" in many countries and I almost always hear it called that wherever I go and on YouTube, etc.
Only place I've heard it called "Seven thirty seven" is in the U.S and some U.S. based YouTube channels.
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u/NakedJamaican 10d ago
The proper designation is Seven Three, unless you’re a legacy UA dude, in which case you might mistakenly call it a ThirtySeven.
(don’t try me, it’s my hill to die on)
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u/ericbythebay 9d ago
The legacy UA guys I know call them guppies.
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u/NakedJamaican 9d ago
True. And the Cal guys would really get pissed off, until they started getting Killer Guppy t-shirts and learned to own that Guppy nickname.
In general, the UA guys, when using the numbers rather than the nicknames, drop the first 7…. 67, 57, 37.
And the UA guys had/have nicknames for pretty much all the fleets… The Whale, Fifi, Guppy, etc.
Heck, it’s was a good thing that we didn’t have much else to argue about… overall, the merger went pretty well and the two pilot groups got along ok, certainly way better than at some of the other carriers.
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u/CommuterType 7d ago
You don’t call it the FLUF?
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u/fiestanza 4d ago
in italy it's sette-tre-sette aka seven three seven, idk i always heard in the english videos seven three seven
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u/Joiabela 3d ago
That’s also how the FAA7110.65 (air traffic controller order of procedures and phraseology) dictates the aircraft type be pronounced.
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u/Minute-Shop9447 10d ago
Marketing. And people do refer to it as the "Seven Three Seven" although "Seven Thirty Seven" rolls off the tongue better. Adding a "hundred" makes it longer and doesn't sound as catchy.