FAA grounds 787

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SomeSailor said:
Aircraft are built around probability of risk, not potential. It's a subtle difference, but design must assume bad things WILL happen, and work to provide appropriate levels of mitigation.
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Don't bother, SomeSailor. Every time these guys respond they simply prove the validity of the title of my "787 vs ignorance" thread. Life's too short to waste it trying to educate people who don't even have a fundamental understanding of what you're talking about. That sounds arrogant, but it's reality.

Reading threads like these has given me a great insight to what the people in Communications have to put with day after day. I know a lot of them and I'm sure you do, too. You couldn't pay me enough to deal with the bozos like they have to.
 
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RickB said:
What part is "hilarious," ??
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I find your rants amusing.

RickB said:
the repitition of misinformation posted by Boeing's local representatives?
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I'm no "representative" of Boeing at all. I just work there.

You seem to like ANY excuse to go after someone, or pick an argument. As far as "earning ridicule", if that's your self-appointed role on this forum, I think you should check yourself.

You wanna put your money where your mouth is, show me where I've misled anyone on here. You asked for an opinion, I gave mine. It's just an opinion and no way represents what actually happened, what the fix will be or what the design will be in the future.

Feel free to take my opinions any way you wish, but be adult enough to refrain from the name-calling and insinuation, I'm a grown man and chose to have conversations with other grown men in that fashion.
 
SomeSailor said:
I'm no "representative" of Boeing at all.
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Particularly now that Boeing is being exposed to worldwide discussion and biting commentary. You didn't mind regurgitating the company line week or so ago.

You seem to like ANY excuse to go after someone, or pick an argument.
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Nah, just when a poke with a pointy stick deflates a puffed up poseur.

Methinks you guys protest too much.
 
RickB said:
Methinks you guys protest too much.
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Methinks you're an argumentative troll who, when tired of arguing ANYTHING anyone says about their boats... starts in on any other subjects he's ignorant of.

Trying to have a discussion with you always always turns into a fool's errand.

I'll let you waddle down that path on your own. What a shame a forum with so much great information so frequently gets sodden with your strident tripe.
 
"The entire industry is invested in lighter, more powerful battery technologies."

And has been for over a century since wet lead acid batts became common .

Everyone on the planet is wishing to move the decimal point , lighter , cheaper , 10 or 100x the power density,faster charge ans discharge.

While creating a mostly electrical aircraft , no bleed air and the Hyd system , really an electric system,
the LI bat jump may have been too far too soon.

As an arm chair guesser my thought is tech readyness failure .

On any product a failure will occur every so often, 1 in 10 on Chrysler cars , maybe 1 in 10,000 on D cells from a mfg.

The LI battery is literally hundreds of batts stuck together , and each individual cell MUST be "perfect" which is difficult as each cell is fairly complex internally..

Sadly one cell failure can cause the entire batt pack to catch fire.

This is the LI problem that has yet to be solved for years , I'm not confident it will be solved in a reasonable enough time that Boeing can stand the wait.

Hanging on , waiting for "the fix" has got to be expensive.

The wings failed on the Electra , that was a BIG problem to fix ,

The problem here seems to be pride.
 
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FF said:
The LI battery is literally hundreds of batts stuck together , and each individual cell MUST be "perfect" which is difficult as each cell is fairly complex internally..
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That's one approach, and actually one of the safer ones. Tesla is taking that approach with his cars. You can have many small cells, and when one fails you simply have a bad battery, or you can have a lighter design that is fewer cells, but the potential for thermal runaway much greater.

FF said:
The wings failed on the Electra , that was a BIG problem to fix, The problem here seems to be pride.
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Not at all. I flew for 23 years on the military version of the L-188 Electra, Lockheed's P-3 Orion. The wing never failed in my career. They overcame the technology challenges, but the plane never succeeded commercially after that. I hope that's not the case with the 787. I don't think Boeing is reacting with pride so much as a business decision.

Ironically, some attribute the success of the the much less efficient jet aircraft (Boeing's 707), to the PR disaster of the L-188.
 
A little side note about the strength of the Electra's wing. NOAA has been flying them (P-3 version) into hurricanes for more than twenty years and hasn't lost one yet.
 
The Electra's problem was not the wing but the engine installation. I remember reading about these accidents and the cause. IIRC, the engines could set up an oscillation that in turn fatigued the engine attachments. The accidents occurred when an engine would suddenly depart the wing which of course caused all sorts of damage to the wing, loss of control, fire, etc.

Once the cause was found the problem was fixed and the airframe went on to a long and successful service.
 
The Electra was way ahead of it's time as well. The Navy really wanted to keep a similar airframe going well into the 21st century, and they're still flying them today. The P-8A will be a nice replacement for many reasons, but my heart will always be with the P-3.
 
"The wing never failed in my career. They overcame the technology challenges, but the plane never succeeded commercially after that."

After the repair and rebuild the aircraft was far too heavy to operate in commercial service.
The airlines do worry about fuel burn , the US Navy could care less.

The Senator from Lockheed got them sold to the USN,, because a few Electras were sold and Loc didn't wish to buy them back OR keep a line open to create replacement /repair parts .

Sadly the wing repair made the aircraft so stiff that in Mad trapping even experienced crew BARFED from the lousy rough ride.

Additionally with a commercial aircraft base , rather than a military design the survivabilty of a P3 using a Nuke torpedo was the same as with a helicopter,,ZERO

Not many Pensacola AOC grads were interested in Kama Kazi procedures,
tho one aircraft for a nuke boomer is a great deal,"120 cities saved",
unless you are driving the delivery cart.

Crap decisions from "the best congress money can buy" (Will Rogers) continues today , look at the base closing dance.
 
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FF said:
Sadly the wing repair made the aircraft so stiff that in Mad trapping even experienced crew BARFED from the lousy rough ride.
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That's funny. I was an WST/IFT for many years and never had that problem. It sounds like you were a P-3 weenie for awhile?
 
FF said:
She is just saying that you should not design an aircraft with the EXPECTATION THAT IT IS GOING TO CATCH FIRE!!!!!.... I happen to agree!!!!!!!!!

Most aircraft ARE built with the concept that they may catch fire.

The engines are built with firewall cut offs that stop fuel, hydraulic etc to that engine, and usually 2 sets of fire bottles.

Proper planning precludes poor performance,
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FF, look at the sentence before the one you quoted. I covered it....and am well aware of the safeguards against fire. Her point(and mine) was that an aircraft should never be designed with the expectation that it is going to catch on fire. Yes, you plan and design for the contingencies....but it should not be inherent in the design.
 
SomeSailor said:
Aircraft are built around probability of risk, not potential. It's a subtle difference,
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Agreed. And Boeing ended up on the wrong side of this one.
 
sunchaser said:
Last but not least, please note the occupation and knowledge of the person who started this thread. He and his thousands of fellow employees definitely need to be aware that the mitigations are real and not Boeing speak.
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Thanks, sir. I could bid and fly this aircraft as a first officer. Being a captain I do not want to go back to the right seat. So hopefully one day I will fly this aircraft(as captain). Everyone I have talked to is blown away by and loves it. But they gotta get to the bottom of this.
 
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Marin said:
Don't bother, SomeSailor. Every time these guys respond they simply prove the validity of the title of my "787 vs ignorance" thread. Life's too short to waste it trying to educate people who don't even have a fundamental understanding of what you're talking about. That sounds arrogant, but it's reality.

Reading threads like these has given me a great insight to what the people in Communications have to put with day after day. I know a lot of them and I'm sure you do, too. You couldn't pay me enough to deal with the bozos like they have to.
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<<"You don't need to be an expert to look at the photos of charred batteries and know that some of the safeguards are failing. The "multiple systems" to prevent just this sort of event "did not work as intended," Deborah Hersman, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said Thursday of the incident in Boston. In blunt language, Hersman said the "expectation in aviation is never to experience a fire on an aircraft.">>

Look at the first 7 words in her statement. And regardless of her expertise, I am sure she is privy to more information on the subject than any of us.

The bottom line is that Boeing KNOWS how volatile Li batteries are and the design of the battery box is basically an admission.

Anyway Marin, I know you have compared this issue with the A380 engine issues and you are correct. But practically speaking, in reality, there is a difference between an engine failure on a 4 engine aircraft and a fire in flight.
 
Baker said:
.... So hopefully one day I will fly t.
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I believe you will, John. I know very little about the 787 but as a prospective paying passenger, I can't wait to take a ride. :smitten:
 
Baker said:
Anyway Marin, I know you have compared this issue with the A380 engine issues and you are correct. But practically speaking, in reality, there is a difference between an engine failure on a 4 engine aircraft and a fire in flight.
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I don't disagree with you but I've read the damage report on the Qantas A380 and they did a lot more than just lose an engine. The flight crew and the Qantas people doing the initial inspection felt that had that plane been just a little further along on its flight the crew would have been unable to return to land. The damage to the wing structure itself was amazing and the crew could barely keep abreast of the plane's systems that were failing or dropping offline.

While "containing" a potentially serious problem is certainly not as good a solution as eliminating the risk of having the problem altogether, it is not an unprecedented thing to do. Virtually every turbofan operating today has a containment structure designed to keep fan and turbine blades that might come off from exiting the nacelle and causing untoward damage. And blades do come off, albeit very rarely.

BTW, my "787 vs ignorance" title was not to imply that the only people who understand the industry are the people at Boeing. Far from it. The folks at the regulatory agencies, our competitors, our customers, our suppliers and partners, certainly understand the industry that they are part of. But in the overall scheme of things, that's a not a huge number of people.

People outside this industry-- or who were part of it decades ago--- are largely ignorant of its current realities as witness the uninformed posts popuating almost every aviation thread that pops up here. They read stuff and parrot it back, but what they are reading is usually written second or third hand by people equally outside the industry even if their "job" is reporting on it.

A lot of the posts here make for interesting and entertaining reading simply because it's amusing to see how far off base people can be even though they think they're right on the money. But other than the entertainment value, I see little point in trying to engage them in any meaningful dialogue because they are so far out of the loop.
 
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Baker said:
Agreed. And Boeing ended up on the wrong side of this one.
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You could very well be right. People just don't understand the subtle difference between "probability" and "possibility"

We deal is probability factors, all reactive metal batteries can catch fire (possibility). They liklihood that one will catch fire, and then not remain in check... (probability).

Possible isn’t probable. The mere possibility of something is rarely a good reason to make a mitigation. But then again... From one of my favorite movies: "Sometimes you eat the bear ... and sometimes the bear eats you." :)

watch
 
"and the crew could barely keep abreast of the plane's systems that were failing or dropping offline."

This is an even bigger problem as most crew are only taught switch positions.

Ancient pilots (of the 60's 70's 80's) could draw a good schematic for most systems , so had a handle on what would fail after the first set of failures.

Too expensive today , easier to just pay the insurance.
 
FF, I think that is an oversimplified view. When systems are dropping in rapid succession(ie faster than one can think), systems knowledge is irrelevant. Ultimately, you have to be able to zoom out and get a picture of what is actually going on....ie what is happening and what checklists to run(first). So you still have to know what is going on with the systems. I have been (un)fortunate to straddle this technology explosion in that I have been trained in both schools of thought. I simply can't go ignorantly "into the night" without knowing how a system works. Whether they teach me or not(which they do), I cannot go forward in good conscience without knowing how a system works. I have 9 type ratings in transport category aircraft and amazingly the engineering theory is very similar regardless of who made the aircraft. It is because Boeing/America led the charge and were very successful....and other manufacturers basically copied what works. Obviously, the 787 is going off in a different direction as it relates to engineering.

What I think is good about what you are referring to is that we are no longer required to regurgitate meaningless numbers that have absolutely no bearing on the operation of the aircraft....ie the model designation of the engines. I have no clue. I know it is a CFM56 followed by about 30 different letters and numbers and dashes and that is all I know or care to know. We operate all kinds of different versions of the CFM56 with all kinds of different thrusts ratings(which I don't know either and it doesn't matter). Even fuel tank capacities are irrelevant(but I know them because they are the same on all 737NGs)....we go with how much we need for the mission and as you know it is rarely ever topped off.

I will say that there is some truth to what you are saying but we are continuously battling "abandoning the basics" versus relying on technology. But to suggest that pilots are bunch of bumbling ignorant programmed switch pushers is not an accurate assessment at all.
 
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I will say that there is some truth to what you are saying but we are continuously battling "abandoning the basics" versus relying on technology. But to suggest that pilots are bunch of bumbling ignorant programmed switch pushers is not an accurate assessment at all.

With limits to stall training , upset training , and even bank angles , back to basics is hardly enough.

It would be nice if FLYING was required , such as actual stall, spin recovery , even if taught in a flea plane , the experience might help. AF 447 ?


As more systems depart from mechanical , bleed power or a hyd system , all that's left is switches , and the prayer that the electric setup will still be working.

That makes BASIC FLYING skills more important , as the driver attempts to discover what is still functioning .
 
RT Firefly said:
Greetings,
For those who don't subscribe to the DM...
Boeing were allowed to carry out their own safety checks on Dreamliner jets as there were no federal guidelines for testing lithium batteries that grounded the fleet | Mail Online
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Thanks RT this safety check issue and related concerns has been out there for some time, as far back as 2007 at the Tucson Li battery design and testing facility. Tis a shame that federal guidlines seem required for everything, but once in the air it has been fair game for a very long time. Currently the FAA and NTSB are assessing this red flag along with just having granted permission for the 787 to begin test flights with only the necessary key people onboard and over low populated areas (the Pacific?). Boeing has just announced delivery delays until the battery issue is resolved. Maybe the Boeing Chairman could pull a Howard Hughes "Spruce Goose" and demonstrate his aircraft and flying skills as one of the onboard key personnel.
 
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sunchaser said:
Maybe the Boeing Chairman could pull a Howard Hughes "Spruce Goose" and demonstrate his aircraft and flying skills as one of the onboard key personnel.
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Yeah, right. Boeing's chairman came from Proctor and Gamble, GE, and 3M. He is hardly an "aviation person" so if we are to apply Marin's guidelines for those who should be allowed to comment on Boeing's problems, even he is one of the "ignorant."

Howard Hughes, on the other hand, was a pilot and was quite competent to sit in the left seat.
 
I see they are starting to do some test flying now.
 
Ferry flights and B1's.

Every plane needs to get what's called a B1 flight completed before delivery. We've been cleared to start those again and ferry flights from other locations. It's going to be some time before the fix is in place, tested and certified so production needs to keep moving.
 
RickB said:
Yeah, right. Boeing's chairman came from Proctor and Gamble, GE, and 3M. He is hardly an "aviation person" so if we are to apply Marin's guidelines for those who should be allowed to comment on Boeing's problems, even he is one of the "ignorant."

Howard Hughes, on the other hand, was a pilot and was quite competent to sit in the left seat.
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My "ignorant" comment applies to people outside the industry, which other than SomeSailor and I and the few currently active air transport pilots includes everyone (in my opinion) on this forum.

While McNerney is not a pilot (so far as I know) neither are most of the other people at this company. And while his previous employment was not in the aviation industry it has been for some time now.

Previous employment is sort of irrelevant, anyway. Bill Allen, arguably the most influential CEO Boeing has ever had-- he moved the company into the jet age--- graduated from Harvard law school and joined the Seattle law firm of Donwrth, Todd, and Higgins, which happened to have The Boeing Company as one of its clients. Few people today, particularly all of us at Boeing, would claim that when Bill Allen was the company's CEO, after serving for some time on the board as the company's corporate counsel, he was "ignorant" of the industry despite his law education and his previous employment as a lawyer in a local law firm.

Rick is right, Howard Hughes was an outstanding pilot as well as aircraft designer, at least in terms of concept. I don't believe he was a nuts-and-bolts, drafting-table-type engineer but he came up with some very innovative ideas and had the means to take them to fruition.

While the H4 Hercules, aka Spruce Goose (which has little or no spruce in it) garnered a lot of ridicule, if you go to the Evergreen Aviation Museum in Oregon where it is displayed and learn about the innovative technologies that were developed for its construction, for example, it was a remarkable achievement.

The aerodynamicists and propulsion engineers I've had the opportunity to talk to about the plane since I first saw it in Long Beach in the 1980s said that in their opinion the H4 would have flown just fine. (This is NOT the same thing as saying it would have been a good or successful plane.) The fact it made just the one short, straight flight had, in their view, nothing to do with the limitations of the plane and everything to do with Hughes' attitude by that time toward the project and the government.
 
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Marin said:
My "ignorant" comment applies to people outside the industry, which other than SomeSailor and I and the few currently active air transport pilots includes everyone (in my opinion) on this forum.
QUOTE]

One thing is for sure, the ignorant world population knows the plane is not flying because of a poor (ignorant) electrical Boeing design. This current failure is only the latest in a litany of other design and scheduling glitches teh 787 has seen.

The ongoing 787 issues rank as one of if not the most expensive failures, where no bankruptcy was announced, of modern times. The losses have been posted on Boeing's filings and releases and recorded on lenders books per SEC and other world exhange rules and regulations. These reporting rules are in place to keep (way too) smart folks from taking advantage of us ignorant folks.

Thank goodness the FAA and NTSB are dosing this issue with some apparently spot on outside (ignorant) perspective.
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The FAA and NTSB are part of the aerospace industry, unless you are ignorant of that fact, too, along with everything else.
 
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