Boeing 787

[sunchaser]

Boeing has suspended test flights of the 787 due to the recent onboard fire associated with the electrical gear. The 787*is turning into a real debacle for Boeing. And it is a "glued together" plane to boot!

Boeing and Airbus may start to lose sales to a more structually and electrically conservative Chinese designed plane now in final design and early stages of construction.

Marin - How is Boeing spinning this one, with the FAA now crawling all over the damaged 787.

 

[FF]

And it is a "glued together" plane to boot!


Since all but the masochists among us are in all glue boats , isn't this the stove calling the pot black.


If your cruiser is lashed together logs , I guess you can grouch.

 

[sunchaser]

FF

Well now that you mention it many fast tech sailing vessels have capsized as their glued on keels gave out. But to compare a slow trawler's*3M 5200 glued on caprail at sea level to a Dreamliner or Airbus at 6 miles is apples and oranges. As I recall the Airbus that went into the South Atlantic last year has on*the likley culprit list the glued on tail section gave way.

The more basic question is who benefits from more complicated electrical/computer*circuits (think Swissair going down in Canada a few years back as the wires for the in seat entertainment systems failed) and carbon fiber type fusing technology as it applies to aircraft.

And how about the electrical caused fire on the Carnival cruise ship? I bethca it will be traced to faulty maintenance on low bidder installed electrical equipment.

By the way, I am not anti digital technology, big circuitry or the use of composite structures*- I have been very active for the past 4 decades in the design and installation*of the most complicated ground based electrical systems and space age coatings and glues one could imagine.

 

[FF]

slow trawler's are mostly GLUE , Cheap polyester resin stuck to fiberglass , with only hope that it sticks to the other layers.

60% glass and 40% resin on the rare well built hull, more like 60% resin and 40% glass on the chopper gun or normal US illegals hand work crew.

The problem is not the wires , for Air Bust the problem is their (usually correct) view that the auto pilot is the only pilot on board.

This KILLED a few crews while the world was watching at the Paris show TWICE!.

 

[Marin]

sunchaser wrote:Marin - How is Boeing spinning this one, with the FAA now crawling all over the damaged 787.

I don't think Boeing is spinning anything.* The FAA was on the plane, by the way, during the test flight when the fire occurred.* The fire may have started in a test rack as opposed to a part of the plane's standard equipment.* But this was still a question as of the other day when I read about the incident.

One of the frustrations in this business is the expectation of people today that everything should work perfectly the first time and never have any problems.* This is due, in part, to the simplistic view of things that is projected by the media.*

Perhaps more than any other industry, the air transportation industry is plagued by misperceptions, assumptions, and ignorance on the part of just about everybody outside it.* Many of the comments I see on this forum are ample evidence of that.* The same could be said of the oil industry, too, I guess.* But what sets the air transporation industry apart is the whole sensational aspect of "falling" out of the air.* More people are killed in cars every day than are killed in airplanes in, what, a year, ten years?* I don't know the numbers but they are easily found.* But we all drive cars so we'll drive past a fatal road accident where they are still scraping the driver off the inside of the windshield and not even be distracted from our phone conversation.* But the crash of a Cessna 150 that kills one or two people is front page, lead-in-story material.

A commercial airliner is arguably the most complex machine man has ever made.* To think a new design will work perfectly from day one is ridiculous.* That's why new airpalne models undergo a year or so of flight testing with a flight test fleet of several airplanes.* The 777 flight test fleet, for example, had twelve airplanes in it at one point.

I have not been that involved in the 787 program, but I was heavily involved in the 777 program.* The attitude of John Cashman, the 777 chief test pilot, and the entire 777 flight test organization was that they celebrated every time they encounterd a problem with the airplane.* And the 777 had some serious ones at first, just like every new jetliner program.* But a problem found and fixed in flight test is a problem that won't occur in service.

Whatever the cause of the fire was, be it in a flight test equpment rack or a component of the actual airplane, it will be figured out and corrected, the same as has been going on at Boeing since 1916 and at Airbus since 1970.

You can call all this spin if you want to, but what I have described is the reality of how airplanes are developed and tested.* Computers and wind tunnels don't find and fix every problem.* They get you in the ballpark and then you start dealing with the issues that come up one at a time.* The first time they stalled the 777 it flipped upside down.* Nobody saw that coming and it was an easy fix, but that's the kind of thing you deal with in flight testing.* It's why they call it flight TESTING.

And FYI, the 787 is no more "glued together" than the 777, 747, etc.* The individual body sections are composite but they are joined together in the same way as the 777's aluminum body sections are joined together.

*


-- Edited by Marin on Thursday 11th of November 2010 01:52:18 PM

 

[RickB]

http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20101111/SCBJ02/311119999/1005/BIZ

EVERETT The Boeing Co.'s 787 test jets remain grounded after an electrical fire forced an emergency landing on Tuesday.

A power control panel is at the heart of Boeing's investigation into the source of the fire, which caused smoke to waft into the cabin of the second 787 test plane.

It's too early to answer whether the incident will lead to a delay in delivery of the first 787 expected in February, said Scott Fancher, vice president of Boeing's 787 program. Boeing's 787 program is already running almost three years behind schedule.


The 787 made an emergency landing Tuesday in Laredo, Texas, after the fire broke out in the rear electronics bay. In that area, the airplane is not equipped with fire suppression equipment. Instead, the bay is outfitted with nonflammable materials including fire-retardant blankets, Fancher said. The 787 lost primary electrical power but the backup emergency power unit, called the ram air turbine, functioned as designed, he said.

*

AP report

"Boeing says it lost eight 787 orders in the week that ended Tuesday, the same day that one of the planes made an emergency landing."

rders-for-787.html#ixzz150PAq2R2">



<pre>
By Maxwell Murphy
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
</pre>
The head of Boeing Co. (BA) said Thursday that the company had been "too ambitious" in the development program for its new 787 aircraft as he delivered a downbeat assessment of the future of the U.S. aerospace industry.

Jim McNerney, chairman and chief executive, said Boeing had delegated too much work to partners as part of a broad outsourcing initiative designed to share the cost and risk of its development programs and said the 787 was "good example" of what had turned out to be a weakness rather than a strength.

 

[Nomad Willy]

" the air transportation industry is plagued by misperceptions, assumptions, and ignorance on the part of just about everybody outside it."

Well Tom,
It looks like we've been called ignorant since we're not in the air transportation industry.

 

[Marin]

RickB wrote:

Jim McNerney, chairman and chief executive, said Boeing had delegated too much work to partners as part of a broad outsourcing initiative designed to share the cost and risk of its development programs and said the 787 was "good example" of what had turned out to be a weakness rather than a strength.

*

The understatement of the year.* It is interesting-- and actually rather encouraging--- to hear some of the same people who so strongly promoted (or insisted upon) the huge outsourcing plan for the 787 now saying it was a mistake.* Hopefully they will learn from their mistakes.* So far, from what is being said throughout the company with regards to future programs, it sounds like they have.* Time will tell.

*

_____________________________________________________________________

AP report

"Boeing says it lost eight 787 orders in the week that ended Tuesday, the same day that one of the planes made an emergency landing."

_____________________________________________________________________

*

Another good example of the press talking out its butt by connecting two unlrelated facts together to make it sound like they're related.* Boeing also picked up 787 orders during this same period.


-- Edited by Marin on Thursday 11th of November 2010 02:37:15 PM

 

[Marin]

nomadwilly wrote:Well Tom,

It looks like we've been called ignorant since we're not in the air transportation industry.

Good, I was afraid you'd miss the point

* However my statement was confined to knowledge of the air transportation industry, not everything.* You still know way more about Thorne Bay and boats than I ever will

*

 

[sunchaser]

As RickB added, there are 787 issues as freely stated by high up company personnel.*If anyone cares to, look at the fine print in Boeing's last few 10Ks under "notes"*about the 787 "reasons for delay"*statements.*All of Boeing's filings and related releases*can be found in the Edgar system under BA. Their stock has dropped about 8% in the past 2 days.

This is a big deal, Boeing has bet*a great part of its financial future*on the 787. Too many business analysts think as ignorantly as I do - glue, composites*and fly by wire need to be perfect.

Rolls Royce is caught up*in now another aircraft equipment*related*issue with their Airbus engine failure which narrowly missed being a disaster. This will cost RR tens of millions, which they can ill afford since they had to bid their Airbus engines at near breakeven to get the huge order.

 

[RickB]

nomadwilly wrote:It looks like we've been called ignorant since we're not in the air transportation industry.

At least you haven't been contaminated by a "brush" with the industry.

*

 

[Marin]

sunchaser wrote:

This is a big deal, Boeing has bet*a great part of its financial future*on the 787. Too many business analysts think as ignorantly as I do - glue, composites*and fly by wire need to be perfect.

Nobody is saying this isn't a big deal.* it might even be as big a deal as the early years of the 747 which damn near destroyed the company.* But companies have had "big deals" and then recovered very nicely.* I saw the other day that BP, the company that everyone said was going to be destroyed by the Gulf oil spill is now nicely back in the black with regards to profits.* And that's only been after a few months.

As to your statement about thinking ignorantly, you do not work in this industry, you have no clue what goes on here every day (not that you should) and what you know about our planes, how they are designed, tested, and supported is obviousy based for the most part on what you read.* That, in my book, is ignorance about the workings of this industry.* I daresay the average assemby mechanic in Everett or Renton has forgotten more about the commercial aircraft manufacturing industry than you will ever know.

If I sound pissed off it's because I am whenever I see ignorant statements from people perporting to know all about how some industry works when in fact they haven't got a freaking clue.

*

 

[RickB]

Marin wrote:If I sound pissed off it's because I am whenever I see ignorant statements from people perporting to know all about how some industry works when in fact they haven't got a freaking clue.

Whoa Marin, nobody has made a single "ignorant statement" in this thread ... so far anyway and that is giving you credit despite getting a bit close to the edge with a little bit too quick, too strong defense ...

*

 

[sunchaser]

In Boeing's*February 2010 10 K, delivery of the 787 was stated to commence the last quarter of 2010. Several new design flaws and technical reasons for the continuing delays were cited, none minor.

In the 10Q for the quarter ending September 30 delivery had moved out to the second quarter of 2011. Several new technical and manufacturing reasons for the delay were again cited, none minor.

For those of us who are relegated to the official, executive and non-ignorant reasons for the ongoing delays, go to www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data and look up Boeing or BA. If these documents don't adequately cover*the real reasons for the delays, some people will be going to jail.

 

[Marin]

RickB wrote:Whoa Marin, nobody has made a single "ignorant statement" in this thread ...

Tom has come pretty close with his statement, or at least implications, about composites and fly by wire.* Fly by wire is probably one of the most misunderstood things in aviation by the general public.

The 787 does not employ any dramatic new technologies.* What it does is employ existing*technologies in new ways, and it incorporates refinements to new technologies.* But it's not a revolutionary step forward, it is, like all commercial airplanes, an evolutionary step.

Composite construction in airplanes is as old as the hills.* Fly by wire is as old if not older.* When I hired into Boeing we had a plane called the YC-14.* It was Boeing's entry into the competition for a new cargo plane for the Air Force.* Douglas' entry was the YC-15.* The YC-14 had been designed in the 1970s, and it not only had fly-by-wire, it even had fly-by-light systems in it.

On the subject of airplane problems, I was just e-mailed a damage report on the A380 that blew one of its engines the other day.** The damage to the plane itself*and to*the plane's systems is mind boggling.* It's a credit to the flight crew that they got it back onto the ground under control.

So what you read about in the press, or hear aviation analysts talk about, is more often than not speculation or assumption.** As I said earlier, as with any industry be it Tom's mining industry or Rick's yacht management industry, people outside the industry generally have at best the barest glimmer of what really goes on.* And in today's lawyered up world, the chances of you ever learning the real truth are almost nil unless you are directly connected not only with the industry but the specific program in question.

 

[sunchaser]

Boeing's problems with the 787's composites and*electrics (glue and fly by wire in the ignorants' terms) are well documented. The current failure with a supplier's electric panel is getting lots of press and will lead to at least another delay. Boeing now estimates that between 500 to 600 planes (and climbing)*delivered*represents financial breakeven.

Last year the 787*failed a crucial wing test. This flaw in the Boeing design*resulted in composite de-lamination damage to 17 long stiffening rods or stringers located on each wing's upper skin. This also resulted in damage to the fuselage where the wing joins.

The wings for the 787 are made by Mitsubishi in Japan. The center wing box, which helps tie the wings to the body are made by Fuji in Japan. Wirhout going into details, Boeing came up with a design fix which reshaped* the stringer ends and transferred part of the load onto newly installed titanium fittings. Boeing designed how the Mitsubishi and Fuji composite parts tie together so bore the costs of the overruns.

All major industries have entered into partnering arrangements with suppliers. This only works if the designer (Boeing in this case) has carefully established the design basis and criteria.**Add to this the absolute necessity for the suppliers to be*good and cost effective at what they do.

Generally, the suppliers make their profits well before the assembler, in this case*Boeing. For this reason, Boeing may well be waiting a decade or more to show profits on the 787. Rest assured, today's cheap money plays favorably into Boeing's financial models. You can safely assume that Boeing and the banks are tied at the hip on the 787 delays.

This type of business model and the failures that have emananted from it are the subject of business schools course study. Boeing*openly states that they have made mistakes in this regard and may be assmbling the tail sections for the 787 themselves.*

Now Marin, none of this stuff I ignorantly and briefly stated above is private.* It has been released by bits and pieces to the the public and is part of the modifications to the hundreds of pages of loan documents.*Hopefully glues and composites are behind the 787 and only the wires remain.

Please note I have not taken Boeing to task for their*less-than-perfect *relationship with their unions*nor the issues associated with*their costly, unsettling and untimely move to Chicago.

 

[RickB]

sunchaser wrote:Please note I have not taken Boeing to task for their*less-than-perfect *relationship with their unions*nor the issues associated with*their costly, unsettling and untimely move to Chicago.

Yeah, but you got that information off the internet didn't you? It's automatically suspect if not completely invalid unless it came directly from a Boeing exec or marketing guy.

I was in Seattle at the time they moved to Chicago. My friends who worked for Boeing, including some very highly placed engineers, figured it was to keep the execs safe from disgruntled ex employees and*complete the*disconnect*from Seattle so they wouldn't be subject to any feelings of loyalty to the area or its workforce.

I doubt there is a great wave of sympathy among PNWers*for Boeing*or its problems. There is probably a great deal of schadenfreude which has made some of its marketing folks really sensitive.

*

 

[sunchaser]

Actually Rick B, I did not get that information directly off the internet. The intitial reading on BA's problematic move to Chicago came as best I recall from reading the Financial Times or WSJ years ago when*flying *to some exotic place I cannot (or care not to) remember. Except today of course, all newspapers and business journals such as USA Today, Chicago Tribune, Fortune, BusinessWeek etc are "on" the internet.

Boeing lost a lot when Alan Mulally left 4 years ago to take over the reins at Ford. He reputedly could talk with Boeing's best engineers about problems and come up with solutions. But Boeing passed him over following Stonecipher's firing (for sexual midconduct) and hiring back McInerary, a "lesser*airplane" guy.* Before Stonecipher, Phil Condit was forced out as Boeing's top guy - too many years of upheaval at the top have been difficult for Boeing.

Mulally by the way is running Ford exactly as predicted - up early, 12 hours a day, good engineering decisions and a revamped product line. Plus no bailout money for Ford required!!

 

[Marin]

Everything Tom has said is true and is old news. That's not the sort of things I'm talking about. Hell, my dog knows all that stuff Tom listed. That's all press release stuff and financial disclosure stuff. What I'm talking about are the detail engineering facts and testing facts and all the research and development that goes on here that affects the products that is not made public, which is most of it.

Statements about "gluing" the 787 together are wrong. Spend five minutes on the assembly line and that is glaringly obvious. You don't even have to know anything about airplanes to see that it's not "glued" together. Most of what has been said about fly-by-wire on this forum is wrong. RickB's "reason" why they moved the HQ to Chicago is about as wrong as it gets. That doesn't mean it was a good decision, but his assumption of the reason is totally off the mark. A lot of people at Boeing believe the same thing he does, and they're wrong, too.

I wouldn't know the real reason either if iAlan Mulally hadn't told me in the course of something I was doing with him. By the way, we did not "hire back" McNerney. We hired back Stonecipher after he retired. So you guys aren't even reading the internet correctly.

So here, let's have a pissing contest. I get my "information" about what's going on in this company from the company's assembly mechanics, design engineers, flight test engineers, flight test pilots, wind tunnel engineers, aerodynamicists, program directors, factory managers, fight line crews, environmental engineers (the noise, fuel, and emissions folks), flight crew training instructors, maintenance training instructors, simulator engineers and operators, structural engineers, electrical engineers, composite engineers, our warranty board members, our customer service people, and the engine reps from Rolls, GE, and Pratt. When we're out at an airline I get my information from our field service reps, airline CEOs, CFOs, operations directors, maintenance directors, passenger service managers, engineering managers, maintenance managers, air cargo managers, line and shop mechanics, line pilots and cabin crews. I've worked inside every plane we make, watching the planes come together and talking to the people doing the work in Everett, Renton, and Charleston. I've talked to the machine operators in Charleston who are winding body sections for the 787 and ridden on the machine that does it. I've talked to lightning strike experts, landing gear experts, composite research scientists, and our fight control engineers about everything from the realities of fly-by-wire to flight control philosophies. I've flown on multiple test flights in the 757, 767, and 777 and talked to the flight crews and test engineering crews about what they observed and learned. The chief engineer of the 777 once spent a couple of hours with me describing all the significant problems that were encountered on the 777 and the solutions that fixed them. I've got a fair amount of time flying the 757 and 777 full-motion simulators and discussing airplane flight control philosphy, handling, and display technology with the engineers that created them. I once spent an hour or so talking about flight control philosophy and airplane flight management with Niki Lauda, a Formula 1 champion and a very opinionated guy, who founded Lauda Air, and flew all his planes--- 737, 767, and 777--- on revenue flights. I've flown on the flight decks for entire flights (revenue flights) with airlines ranging from British Airways to Air Malta talking to the flight crews about the airplane and their experiences with it and opinions of it. I've met and interviewed about his work "Engineer-X," the fellow who single-handedly figured out how to make the Sonic Cruiser work aerodynamically. We didn't pursue that airplane, not because it wouldn't have worked, but because in the end the airlines decided it wasn't what they wanted. For competitive reasons we did not reveal the engineer who came up with the aerodynamics that made the plane viable, he was only named in press releases as "Engineer-X."

I've been doing all his for 31 years now.

You two get your information from the internet, newspapers and magazines, and a few friends in the business.

You're right. I'm wrong, you two know FAR more about this industry and this company than I do. My bad.* You win.



-- Edited by Marin on Friday 12th of November 2010 02:00:09 PM

 

[sunchaser]

Marin

McNerney was an "internal hire" from the Boeing Board whre he had served from 2001 to 2005 before being nominated as CEO. So you are right, he was not hired back, he was hired internally and from the outside.

One thing that is fact, the*pitfalls and foibles of the 787*to-date have been a huge black eye for Boeing.*I don't doubt for a minute that you are in the trenches with all the Boeing guys. I'm sure your hard work and loyalty to Boeing is richly rewarded at bonus time. Good job!

And speaking of fly by wire, did you note that Airbus is currently in the process of drafting a worldwide safety warning about electrical problems with the 321? The WSJ today says* "for years safety investigators in Britain, France, the US and elsewhere have been concerned about electrical system glitches resulting in dangerous shutdowns of flight control computers."

 

[RickB]

Marin wrote:You're right. I'm wrong, you two know FAR more about this industry and this company than I do. My bad.* You win.

Should we add a "passive agressive button" to the selection as well. I don't think either of us posted anything that wasn't a direct quote from a Boeing executive or some other generally respected industry source or analyst.

Just because something doesn't come from a Boeing press release doesn't mean it is not valid. There are plenty of guys who work closer than you to the line or suppliers who contribute to blogs and tell stories just like you do. Why should we feel that everything you say is gospel but everything anyone else says is "suspect" at best? Is the WSJ, Av Week, or Flight just making up stuff because it annoys you or puts your company in a bad light?

The information Boeing released to the PI came out while you still claimed no one knew anything or had told you anything. Pictures showing the location of the power panel were posted online hours after the incident and while Boeing and you were still trying to float the idea that maybe the fire was in a flight test rack. H'mmmm is there a pattern developing here?

The fact that you admit there are many people in Seattle who believe Boeing left town to avoid having to look its neighbors in the eye confirms my statement that many people believe that is the reason, even Boeing's own employees.

So what's the beef?


-- Edited by RickB on Friday 12th of November 2010 02:39:12 PM

 

[skipperdude]

Marin,

Whisky and fresh horses for my men.

People only know what they know or were led to believe.

There is always a kink in the line that somebody has to straighten out.


SD



-- Edited by skipperdude on Friday 12th of November 2010 02:41:17 PM

 

[Marin]

Tom wrote--" McNerney was an "internal hire" from the Boeing Board whre he had served from 2001 to 2005 before being nominated as CEO. So you are right, he was not hired back, he was hired internally and from the outside"

I will respond to this here, but I suggest that if we want to continue this discussion that we move it to OTDE before John Baker puts a note in our permanent records that we have been breaking TrawlerForum posting rules.

Jim McNerney was named to the Boeing board of directors as you say. When the board finally decided to "retire" Phil Condit their first choice for CEO was Jim. However he had just accepted the CEO position at 3M and he felt that he owed that company at least a period of service. That was when we hired Stonecipher out of retirement. (We'd inherited Stonecipher when we merged with McDonnell-Douglas). When he "retired" again, at that point the board was able to persuade Jim to leave 3M and take over the CEO position at Boeing.

The 787 has been a learning experience for the whole industry, I think. The pessimistic view is that Boeing screwed up big time and has tarnished its reputation. A more optimistic view, perhaps, is that this industry, like every industry, has to continuously advance which it does by trying new things. Some things work and some don't. The 787 program tried something very ambitious that didn't work out so well. There are a zillion reasons why the risk-sharing concept hasn't worked out as planned, from some fundamentally flawed reasons for doing it in the first place to poor performance from suppliers and risk-sharing partners who had promised better.* But, as I mentioned before, if the company and the industry has learned a big lesson about how not to do something, it could result in a stronger company and industry down the road.

My own theory, based on a lot of things, is that there has been far too much focus put on the process and not enough put on the product.* I believe this is the fundamental problem behind almost almost everything undertaken today and is why projects from light rail systems to new sewage treatmant plants to new airplanes get bogged down in technical problems, schedule problems, quality problems, and massive cost over-runs.

You have to have processes to get anything done, be it design and build a boat to designing and building an airliner.* But on the 777 program, for example, the focus never strayed from the product.* If a problem couldn't be solved with the processes in place, the processes were changed, or if time was of the essence, the processes were abandonned altogether and the engineers, flight test people, or whoever, simply focused on finding and fixing the problem.* Today, I think too much effort and time is spent trying to use the approved, cast-in-stone process to solve a problem, even if the process isn't really matched to the problem.

I would be curious to know if you have found anything like this to be the case in your own industry? (If you respond, put it in OTDE.)

All I know about the Airbus electrical issue is probably the same information you have read.* What I read is that there have been instances of the primary flight display shutting off without warning.* Not a good thing to have happen on approach in dicey weather conditions. Of course, the flight displays, control computers, etc. are not made by the airframe manufacturers.* In many cases Boeing and Airbus use components from the same supplier.* I have not heard that similar problems have occurred on Boeing planes, but I'm sure we have people who are very, very interested in what comes out of all this.



-- Edited by Marin on Friday 12th of November 2010 03:46:00 PM

 

[Marin]

RickB wrote:
So what's the beef?

The beef is that most of what you say with regards to the air transportation industry and Boeing in particular--- not what you quote from what you've read, but the implications or interpretations you put on what you've read-- is wrong.

I'm not going to argue with you or cite specific examples because I have today off and I want to spend it doing something other than dueling with you because that--- as most participants in this forum have learned-- is a no-win proposition regardless of the subject.

Your response wil be that since I don't cite specifics and quotes from previous posts and whatnot that I'm taking the easy way out and not actually proving you're wrong most of the time on this subject, and you'll be absolutely correct.* I takes too much effort and too much time and in the end is totally pointless.* The fact that you're wrong most of the time is irrelevant.* It doesn't matter what you believe about this industry and my company--- you have no effect on either one.* The thought that other people are being misled is annoying to me, however, and is the only reason I bother to respond to your posts on this subject.* If it didn't bug me to see people misled, we would all be spared these "discussions."* I should probably work on that.

You're a very smart, well read, globally-aware person.* You know a lot of stuff, no question.* But when it comes to the air transportation industry, specifically the airframe manufacturing industry, outside of what you read you don't know much at all.*

Now I certainly don't know it all, either.* The head of flight test is not calling me up the moment there's a problem and explaining it to me.* So on a lot of things, the 787 fire for example, I'm getting my information from the same sources everyone else is--- the local paper, a explantion on our internal newspaper, the radio news, and so on. Tom asked what I knew about the fire and I told him what I had read at that time.* What I had read contained speculation on the possibility it had been in a test rack.* I am not monitoring every news release or internet story as they come out, so when new information came out, I wasn't aware of it. I didn't learn more about the fire until I read the story in the on-line Seattle Times late last night that I copied and posted to OTDE.* The fact you see all this as some sort of Boeing conspiracy is one more indication of how little you know about this company.

So blast away in your defence. Reading what you write here about the airframe manufacturing industry is like reading what I would write if I chose to express opinons and convey information about the yacht management industry.* It would be mostly wrong.


-- Edited by Marin on Friday 12th of November 2010 03:41:56 PM

 

[RickB]

No need for me to blast away, I'm not the one with his knickers in a twist claiming everyone* else is ignorant or wrong.


Like I repeatedly wrote in the thread that got you all bothered and started your rant that I don't know anything about the aviation business, let's just wait a few months (maybe much longer judging by the way things are going) for the 787 to generate its own figures on how much fuel its bleedless system saves. Then we will see if Boeing marketing claims* match the* physics.

I could be wrong but I don't take it personally enough to write an encyclopedia on why I am or not.

*Except for one guy when it comes to marine engines but that's another story and it is more amusing than anything else.

-- Edited by RickB on Friday 12th of November 2010 03:43:23 PM

 

[Marin]

RickB wrote:

I could be wrong but I don't take it personally enough....

Now THAT is truly funny.* You made my day, thank you.

As to the marine engine bit, I suspect that illustrates that we share the same desire to see correct information posted about a subject that we truly do know about.* For you it's marine engines, or perhaps all engines.* For me, it's the airframe and air transportation industry.

*


-- Edited by Marin on Friday 12th of November 2010 03:53:21 PM

 

[RickB]

Marin wrote:Now THAT is truly funny.* You made my day, thank you.

For you it's marine engines, or perhaps all engines.* For me, it's the airframe and air transportation industry.

Glad to make your day, especially as it's supposed to be a day off, as is mine since I fly (Boeing) to Holland early in the morning.

By all means stick to airframes and manufacturing. I will stick to engines and make comments about how the physics just don't add up when Boeing claims to save fuel by pushing more air at higher pressure through an electrically driven pump than through the bleeds.

We should know for sure shortly, or maybe next year this time, or not.

 

[Marin]

It will also be interesting to see how things unfold for Rolls Royce. I read--- I wasn't told--- that one of the things Rolls did on their newer generation engines in the attempt to reduce weight was eliminate the Kevlar shield that surrounded the engine core. This Kevlar shield is part of the containment system on earlier engines. Instead they are using a titanium surround to accomplish this, but what I don't know is if this titanium surround is part of the case for the engine core itself so would be there anyway, or if it is a substitute for the Kevlar shield. In any event, they perhaps should have retained the Kevlar.

I don't know how GE engines handle containment in comparison.

 

[RickB]

It will be very interesting to see how this washes out. There have been questions about the IP shaft spline for a long time and that is still suspect from what I have read. Also, they don't know if the fire came from an oil leak and that heated up the casing to the point blade tip rubbing took out the wheel or exactly what the sequence was. It has the potential to do a huge amount of damage to RR though.

There is so much speculation that I don't think we will know anything for a long time other than the operators screaming bloody murder, RR claiming regulators are being too fussy, and other engine makers claiming there is no way their engines could ever do that.

Re the kevlar, I thought that containment of a wheel was considered impossible if not impractical and (here's your airframe domain) certification of the engine on the airframe was based on no damage to the airframe or other engine due to an uncontained compressor or turbine failure.??

It's great geek fodder in an event.

-- Edited by RickB on Friday 12th of November 2010 04:27:56 PM

 

[Marin]

I don't know if 100% containment of blades is a requirement, but a certain degree of containment strength is. I suppose it's impossible to guarantee 100% containment since things can fail in so many ways. But I'm pretty sure from tests we've seen from the engine manufacturers that the containment of blade separation under "normal" failure modes--- however one defines that--- is a certification requirement.

Guaranteeing no damage to the airframe from a blade departing the engine would be extremely difficult, and would require literally armor-plating the fuselage in the areas where blade penetration could occur. From everything I have seen and worked with from the engine manufacturers, the objective is to retain any pieces that come off within the engine case itself. I have worked with slow-motion footage from GE showing how blades that break or separate do not break through the engine casing.* They severely damage it in some cases, but the case is not penetrated.

As I said earlier, I received an e-mail from someone at work who was sent an initial damage report to the A380 by someone in a position to have it. It is pretty amazing what was done to the plane--- the airframe and systems themselves--- by the blade separation. One thing that received some press was the fact that the #1 engine, the engine outboard of the engine that failed, could not be shut off once the plane was on the ground. What I did not know until I read the damage report was they first tried to shut it off using the fire suppression system for that engine. It did nothing. This meant that for the duration of the flight after the engine failure in #2, the #1 engine had no fire protection at all. The only way they were able to shut the engine off was to spray foam into it with a fire truck. There were photos of this in the press.

-- Edited by Marin on Friday 12th of November 2010 07:43:13 PM