The 777X is Absurdly Quiet

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]I've seen the 777X in person several times now, and there's one thing that always leaves me in awe. Yes, this plane is wild to look at. Everything about it is super-sized, and those folding wingtips are unlike anything else in the sky. But, what really blows me away about the 777X isn't what I see, but rather what I hear, because the plane is shockingly quiet. It's not only significantly quieter than its closest rival, the Airbus A350, but it even trumps much smaller jets like the 787.

[00:00:33]So, how does the 777X pull this off?

[00:00:36]Well, it all comes down to the fan. Its GE9X engines use the largest fan blades in the world, and those blades are incredibly well optimized. They move a huge amount of air with each rotation, which means it doesn't have to spin nearly as fast to generate huge amounts of thrust. Now, this is important because the classic buzzsaw noise that you hear on most turbofans is the result of shockwaves that form at the tips of fast-spinning fan blades, which are often traveling faster than the speed of sound. So, if the fan can spin slower, like on the GE9X, those shockwaves won't form in the first place, and the result is a whisper-quiet engine, one that you truly need to hear to believe.