Boeing 737 MAX: Facts, History, and Why Flying One Feels Special

Right now, somewhere over your head, there's a very good chance a Boeing 737 is flying. Statistically it's near-certain: the 737 is one of the most successful airliner families in history, with more than 11,000 delivered since 1967 and thousands in the air on any given day. (Its great rival, the Airbus A320 family, overtook it in total deliveries in 2025 — a two-horse race six decades in the making, and one you can fly both sides of in our building.)

The 737 MAX is the newest chapter of that six-decade story — and at our Pasadena facility, home of the only motion-powered 737 MAX simulator in the USA open to the public, we spend our days inside it. Here's the aircraft's story, the numbers that make enthusiasts grin, and what it actually feels like from the captain's seat.

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From 1967 to Everywhere

The 737 first flew on April 9, 1967 — a stubby, twin-engine "baby Boeing" designed for short hops that airlines could operate cheaply. Nobody at Boeing guessed they were sketching the future backbone of global air travel.

Four generations followed:

• The Originals (-100/-200) — 1960s–80s: cigar-shaped engines, five-abreast economics that changed regional flying
• The Classics (-300/-400/-500) — 1980s–90s: bigger CFM56 engines with the famously flat-bottomed intakes
• The Next Generation (-600 through -900) — late 1990s–2010s: new wing, glass cockpit; the jet most travelers grew up on
• The MAX (7/8/9/10) — 2017–present: the deepest redesign yet

Through all four, one design thread never broke: a pilot from 1968 would still recognize today's cockpit layout — the same yoke-and-throttle DNA, evolved. That continuity is why the 737 became the jet an entire profession learned on.

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What the MAX Actually Changed

The MAX generation (first flight January 2016, in service May 2017) was built around one goal — dramatically better economics — delivered through three big changes:

1. CFM LEAP-1B engines — larger, far more efficient turbofans cutting fuel burn by roughly 14% versus the previous generation
2. AT winglets — the distinctive split-tip design, squeezing drag reduction from both directions
3. A modernized flight deck — four large-format landscape displays replacing the NG's smaller screens; walking from an NG cockpit into a MAX feels like a decade of progress in one glance

737 MAX 8, by the Numbers

• Length: about 39.5 m (129 ft)
• Wingspan: about 35.9 m (117 ft) with winglets
• Range: roughly 3,500 nautical miles — LA to New York with room to spare
• Cruise: around Mach 0.79 (~470 knots)
• Seats: typically 160–180, up to 210

(Specifications per Boeing's official 737 MAX pages — worth a browse for the cutaway diagrams alone.)

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The Grounding — Told Honestly

No honest history of the MAX skips 2019. After two tragic crashes — Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 — investigators traced a flight-control system called MCAS that could act on faulty sensor data, and the worldwide fleet was grounded in March 2019.

What followed was arguably the most intense scrutiny any airliner has ever received: twenty months of redesign, the MCAS system rearchitected with redundant sensors and strict limits, revised pilot training mandated worldwide, and recertification flights by regulators on multiple continents before the FAA cleared the aircraft in November 2020.

Aviation's defining trait is that it converts tragedy into engineering discipline — it's how each generation of aircraft becomes safer than the last. Today the MAX flies daily for major carriers across the globe, carrying millions of passengers a month. In our simulator, guests who ask get the full story from instructors who love talking about how modern flight-control philosophy evolved — including how Boeing's approach differs from Airbus's.

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What It's Like at the Controls

Here's what surprises people: for all its modern displays, the MAX still flies like a 737 — direct, mechanical, honest. The yoke transmits everything. Trim runs on visible spinning wheels beside your knee (a delightfully 1967 touch sitting under 2017 screens). Airbus pilots describe flying "through" a computer; the 737 feels like flying the airplane itself.

In our full-size, motion-powered cockpit, that character comes through exactly: the heft of rotation, the float in the flare, the satisfying roar of reverse thrust — the technology behind that realism is its own story.

And the part that still feels slightly illegal: you can just… fly it. No license, no airline job interview, no experience required. From age 10. In Pasadena.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Where can the public fly a Boeing 737 MAX simulator in the USA? At WeFly in Pasadena, CA — the only motion-powered 737 MAX simulator in the country open to the public. Sessions from $229, by appointment. (See the cockpit gallery.)

Is the 737 MAX safe to fly on today? After its 20-month grounding, redesign, and recertification by regulators worldwide, the MAX returned as one of the most scrutinized aircraft in aviation history — and has flown daily global service since late 2020.

What's the difference between flying the MAX and the A320? Yoke versus side-stick, direct feel versus fly-by-wire envelope logic — we wrote a full hands-on comparison, and you can fly both back-to-back in one visit.

Can I fly the exact procedures real MAX pilots use? Yes — takeoff speeds, autopilot workflow, ILS approaches. Here's the step-by-step of your first flight.

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Sixty Years of History. One Captain's Seat. Yours.

Most people's relationship with the 737 is seat 23C. Upgrade it.

Written by Nik L., co-owner of WeFly — pilot (240+ hours on Cessna and Piper Seneca), aviation graduate, and guide of 3,000+ simulator sessions in the family company he built with his father, a 15,000-hour Boeing 737 captain. Read the WeFly story.

📍 1 W Mountain St, Unit 9, Pasadena, CA 91103 💰 Use code MAYDAY for 20% off Monday–Wednesday 🎫 Fly the MAX at wefly.aero