Why is there any need for a 180mm single. There 36s and 40s fit the bill near to perfect on most set ups. Im sure there would be a rediclous amount of flex with that much travel on a single...with little to no weight saved.

25mm, or one inch, added to a fork with an axle to crown length of 550mm (is that typical, I haven't looked it up, but since it's in the denominator it makes little difference...) gives a percentage length change:
25/550*100 = 4.55%.
This means a moment increase of.... 4.55%, plus whatever stupid big stunts that extra inch makes you do...... It isn't likely to cause it to snap, if the structure (tubes, crown etc) remains the same
Deflection is proportional to the third power of length for a given beam stiffness, thus for a 4.55% increase in length, deflection increases by
(1.0455)^3 = 1.143, or a 14.3% increase in flexure, or
1/1.143 = 0.8752, a 12.5% decrease in stiffness.

That's a pretty rough calculation, not even meritting the 3sf I quoted, it's not FEA tailored to a specific fork, and I haven't even looked up the length of a Fox 36, since it doesn't really matter. It also assumes the head angle doesn't change, i.e. you are using it on an appropriate frame. It does suggest it wouldn't be hard to beef it up a bit to make it strong enough though.

Another point, when manufacturers only say the frame is suitable/warrantable for a certain length of fork, this SHOULD be acknowledged, since the effect is multifold - longer=more leverage and slackens the head angle, which increases moment on the head tube quite a lot.

something that is becoming evident with the longer travel single crown forks (i.e. 160m+) is that the increased leverage on the crown and steerer is causing premature ageing of the fork crown in that forks are developing creaking / crackling noises (especially under hard breaking) and are having to be replaced under warranty

this is not something limited to one brand, I have dealt with numerous crown/steerer warranty claims on Totems, Travis, 36 and 66 forks

a longer travel single crown fork places less stress on the head tube of a frame than the same length fork in a dual crown package, but at the cost of long term durability to the single crown fork's crown and steerer integrity

Been revising your A Level maths recently??  The fact is, travel lengths on single crowns are getting longer and Fox is getting overtaken (IMO) by Marzocchi and Rockshox in terms of travel and performance. I just wondered if anyone had heard if there was anything in the pipeline as Fox are generally very good at setting market trends rather than following them. Thanks for the "information" though!

I don't think RS and especially Marzocchi are even close to the performance of Fox yet with regards to single crowns.  I've owned both Totem Solo Airs, Rockshox' top of the line long travel freeride fork, and Fox 36 Floats...the RS forks weren't even a patch on the Fox forks.  Marzocchi's quality control isn't good enough and neither is RS really.

The only reason for Fox possibly thinking about introducing longer travel forks is to make forks physically longer to suit a different type of fork...this doesn't seem likely.  Fox have gone for XC, All Mountain and DH race...not freeride or slopestyle.  That seems to be a marketing choice from them.  They have forks to suit the types of riding they want to cater for.

Rootes

Try a Totem Coil - way nicer than the 36 Talas or Van. And yes i ve ridden all three and now run the Totem on my ASX 2. Air forks and long travel - no thanks.

Just to add, this is all my opinion, based on my experiences and my requirements in a bike so it's by no means fact clearly.

I also had issues with my Totems because I was very light when I owned the coils, and couldnt get the spring rate I wanted...yet for some reason the Boxxer Teams felt spot on.  One of those things I suppose.

Rotoes