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Boeing Moves Towards New Planes
maliabu writes "Boeing has named its new plane DreamLiner with plans for its future, which is set to fly in 2008. It'll be interesting to see how 'internet-ready' this 7E7 is. It can be very entertaining for all ages as you can brower the net, check emails, weather, watch movies (on demand), listen to music (on demand) or even cut codes some 30,000 feet in the sky! These articles also stated that "The 200-seat 7E7 is meant to replace [a faster plane called] Sonic Cruiser as Boeing's next new major commercial initiative" " I think most people following the airplane builders knew the Sonic Cruiser was dead before birth; but I still don't see how this plane is going to solve Boeing's sales problems.
i like to code when i am high, now i can do that without going to my local dealer..
The lunatic is in my head
Boing PHB1: Most of our major buyers are
struggling to keep their heads above water,
what should we do?
Boing PHB2: I know, let's spend c130's full of
money to design and build a new plane that no one
will buy!
*brilliant!*
--I don't want the world, I just want your half.
I can browse my favorite porn sites, receive emails from the penis enlarger, Jennie wants you now!, and get great mortgage rates, all while flying the friendly skies....
:)
Where's that flight attendant?!
Now people can fill out their "Mile High Club" membership forms before landing...
Sorry, not interested in browering during a plane trip, but as soon as they install a brewery I'll be the first to buy a ticket!
In Soviet Rush, today's Tom Sawyer gets high on you.
In other words, the planes will be flying cubical farms!
www.eFax.com are spammers
I am going later this week, so will have to see it.
If any thing decent will post.
Quoth the article:
"The 7E7, whose main selling point would be 10% or greater fuel efficiency through the use of lightweight composite materials and advanced engine technology"
Boeing has to come with something new. This year will probably be the first year that Airbus will sell more planes than Boeing.
Call me a noob, only having slung bits for 14 years...in what part of the world is "to cut codes" a slang prase for anything?
Here is the link to the 7E7 site on boeing webpage. It has a few mock-ups so you can see what it looks like.
Great Linux Site
The 7E7, whose main selling point would be 10% or greater fuel efficiency
[Argh... my point has already been observed]
Okay, so maybe this is true for the people buying the planes themselves, but I would think being able to get bums on seats would be a better selling point.
With a name like Dreamliner, I would expect, maybe, a good sleep on my next trip. Then again, I may also expect "dreamlike" services, being able to browse the Internet for no extra cost, or maybe even being able to use a cellphone on takeoff.
Ask me about repetitive DNA
You think they'll make a special "Fly along with your captain." version of MS Flight Simulator?
Deltron 3030 - Virus (music video)
The Sonic Cruiser idea was to take a bunch of process and technology improvements that Boeing have developed and at the SAME cost of operations, create a bigger/better/faster plane.
Same Money, More Zing!
But nobody wanted to buy it...
SO! This NEW plane, takes the same new developments, and essentially creates a plane that fits in a current purchasing slot and (MAIN POINT HERE) costs 25% less to run.
Airlines will buy this plane in droves because it will be SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper to run, saving a fortune in jet fuel. 25% decrease in costs means a realistic chance of getting your profits back, which given the current world situation, is a big selling point.
The plane will sell itself. Stuff the internal features. That's just fluff.
Enjoy
--sig fault--
7E7?? Wow, 7e7 being 70000000 :-]
:-]
So we have a choice of large number or bad porn film rip-off of the Love Boat (DreamLiner).
Jaj
Boeing moved from Seattle to Chicago in 2000.
As someone working in the aerospace industry I cannot help but wonder: how do these guy expect to develop such a plane in such a very short time? Unless it is heavily based on an existing design. Usually it takes up to 10 years to bring a plane up to production.
Anybody some information about that?
Every time a news station or reporter takes a picture, they'll claim that they've broken the DMCA and demand money!
In reality, it'll be interesting to see how they can persuade buyers to those planes over others. Many airlines use planes that are from the 70's and 80's because of the costs in purchasing (and leasing) the aircraft these days and because of all the issues flying these days.
There is almost nothing new with this airplane. Its baiscally a modernized 757/767 with more fuel-efficient engines and light-weight material. Similar materials are used on the Airbus A380. I am not an airbus fan, but something like the A380 is just way more spectacular than this. Even the new 747-800 that was just announced is a way cooler airplane.
E for e-enabled? Come on! Conexxion by Boeing can be put into pretty much every Boeing and probably most other major aircraft as well. I had a lot of fun on Lufthansa LH418 surfing the net 30000 feet above Iceland and I would really like to see this on every long-haul flight. But there's no need for a new airplane to offer this, its already there. Lufthansa will soon offer this on most of their trans-atlantic flights.
They rely on marketing to make this plane look like something so spectacular that it deserves a "real" name (not sticking to the 7x7 tradition). But the technology is plain boring. I can understand their decision, given the current market situation, but trying to sell this as something extraordinary is prettty dumb.
This company is annoucing plans for a product that does not exist. I'm guessing they're doing this so that other airlines don't order from Airbus in the next few years before this plane is ready. This sounds like the game some technology companies played and lost big. Think Osborne.
Since a lot of companies are moving away from hub and spoke systems, it's going to be tough for Boeing until they have more offerings outside the long haul market.
Ok, this is from a tech support view point, but can you imagine letting all these people do all these things on a system, and trying to keep it running? Sounds like a support nightmare.
Also,if a 'flyer' is doing 'business critical' email and his station crashes, he/she loses work. This person now sues Boeing because they were told they could use these services during the flight, and now they can't. *shudder at the thought*
Cool idea? YES! Practical impementation? Unlikely.
They'll give you 8 hours on the entertain-net instead of the usual 8 hours of bad movies and sitcom... Funny, I don't see much improvement in this trade-off as I'd much rather reduce the 8 hours to a mere 4 for the same trip.
No matter how E-nabled this plane is, I just don't like to be packed tight in a flying sardine box for a long time!
Range: 7,200-8,000 nautical miles (13,334-14,816 km)
Ripped from the Boeing page. So it can handle long range as well, and it is more efficient than its predecessors.
Great Linux Site
Not that it was quite a brewery, but the now defunct Swissair did roll a barrell of beer into the first - and business class cabin on a flight to Chicago.
Not that I really needed a beer at that time, but the concept was so intriguing, that I er! topped off my slightly intoxicated state.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
How can anything solve Boeing's sales problem when there's whole fleets of aircraft sitting idle in the desert?
I'd have thought the airlines will bring those back into service before they start buying new planes.
(Spudley Strikes Again!)
I work for Qantas, and right now the forward bookings for the next six months are down approx. 60% compared to previous years (because of Terrorism, SARS, SLOPS (severe lack of perspective syndrome)). Not sure we'll be needing new planes anytime soon.
-- the only thing we have to fear is really scary things
'cut codes'? You mean 'write computer programs'?
Am I getting old? Or have you just been reading wayyy too many cyberpunk novels?
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
According to the current issue of the Economist, it's not what you build, it's how you bribe.
It seems to me that maybe Boeing is producing too little too late. As the Airbus representative said, "This is a market where we already have an airplane." And weâ(TM)re talking 5 YEARS away from rolling off the assembly line. They havenâ(TM)t even chose a site for manufacturing yet!
So it seems to me they have a few things to get ironed out if they have any chance of competingâ¦.
A) Tall people on 20-hour trans-Atlantic flights NEED MORE LEG ROOM! (Iâ(TM)m 6â(TM)3â or 195 cm) Iâ(TM)d WEEP FOR JOY and never ride in a competitorâ(TM)s plane again if I stepped aboard and found that I could comfortably plant my ass in a seat without having to put myself in uncomfortable positions to accommodate my long legs.
B) Some sort of ACTUAL reclining would be nice. Iâ(TM)m sure its possible to allow just as many people to board a flight and provide a little comfort without the fear that youâ(TM)re cramping the passenger behind you even more.
C) Iâ(TM)m sure all those 6 figure a year making brainy-boys out at Boeing could do a little tinkering and figure out SOME way of allowing passengers to use assorted electronic gadgetry on flights without causing nose-dives and fiery apocalyptic deaths for everyone on board. Perhaps some sort of array of jacks on the back of the seats that would allow all outgoing and incoming transmissions from said gadgetry to be channeled through a single antennae or array that could be monitored and checked against the data coming to the pilot in the cockpit, thereby avoiding disaster and making customers happier.
D) Do something about the food. Good lord you could excavate a TV dinner from the 1970s out of a landfill, heat it up and it would be more palatable than the garbage they serve on some flightsâ¦*cough cough* United *cough cough*
In my infinitely humble opinion, if Boeing would catch on to consumer demand and implement a few or all of these suggestions theyâ(TM)d be able to truly revolutionize the airline industry and make a few billion in the process and thus enhance shareholder confidence along with personal assets!
Belief that Perspectives matter more than Facts = Mark of the Truly Ignorant
#include "/plane_stuff/fly-by-wire/777.h"
Yeah, but going to your dealer is probably cheaper than buying a plane ticket every time you feel like coding.
I browse Slashdot at +3, Funny
I think Boeing has identified the following rationales for the 7E7 design:
1. A lot of older widebody twin-engine airliners are going to have to be replaced before 2010. The older Airbus A300B2/B4 models are starting to be phased out from airline fleets, as are the older production 767's dating from the early to mid 1980's.
2. The plane's very modern use of aerospace materials will mean relatively low weight of the plane carrying 200-250 passengers, lowering the fuel burn on a seat-mile basis. This means lower fuel costs on routes anywhere between 2,000 to 7,500 nautical miles.
3. Because the 7E7 will use contemporary aerodynamic research, the plane could actually fly faster than the 747-400, if the right engine design can be found. This means the possibility of Mach 0.89 to 0.90 cruise speed, which offers most of the benefits of the Sonic Cruiser with far technical risk in terms of new technology needed.
4. The plane will offer Boeing's Connexion broadband Internet access system as standard on the longer-range models. Imagine being able to access the Internet at minimum one megabits per second download speed in flight.
I think you'll be surprised how many airlines actually DO want a more efficient medium to long range 200-250 seat airliner with reasonably high cruise speeds. While the Airbus A330-200 has been a sale success, the plane is still too heavy and big for many airlines and its cruise speed still can't keep up with the Boeing 777-200ER's and 747-400's that dominate longer range flying today.
It'll really be up against the A320/A330 rather than the A380.
h tml
Boeing are however playing catchup. Airbus have been pushing lower costs, better efficiency and quicker turnarounds for the last decade or two and as such have been gaining market share especially with the new low cost airlines which have sprung up.
e.g.
http://www.easyjet.com/EN/about/aircraft.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
How can it be more efficient when you have to make three or four flights of 7E7s to transport the same number of passengers as an A3XX?
Did you know you can fertilize your lawn with used motor oil?
Because the 7E7 is Boeing's latest vaporware. Yes, vaporware exists in other industries, not just I.T.
Of how Boeing does things right, look up the Gimli Glider.
The only reason that plane was able to land was because Boeing engineers were so damn conservative and had backups for every possible contingency, including dual-engine failure (Which the airline industry and Boeing considered a near impossibility, but included a backup for anyway.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I am not sure if Boeing is currently supplying anything major to the USAF, but there is probably still an internal conflict of interests.
To sell more commercial jets, they need world peace and real (not percieved) end to terrorism. They can pursue this by lobbying and puching the US administration in the direction of sanity.
However, if their military contracts bring more money, there is more profit in pushing in the opposite direction.
Airlines operate on incredibly slim operating margins (2-8% of revenue). A fleet of planes that costs 25% less to run could result in a huge increase in profits.
Similarly, just implementing a good revenue management system could result in a 4-8% increase in revenue which could make the difference between profit and loss. Revenue management systems are the reason that ticket prices are so crazy sometimes.
Of course, if the personnel costs are too high (like United), nothing will help.
A320 A330 ranges etc.
The difference is that Airbus have been giving their customers what they are asking for and Boeing have been giving customers what they've got.
EasyJet are a prime example of a company switching to Airbus A319s over 737s because the operating costs are significantly lower.
http://www.easyjet.com/EN/about/aircraft.html
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
The planes from both Airbus and Boeing have "economy", "standard" and "luxury" seating configurations. Guess which configuration gets used by the airlines most.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Yes that is right. They had composites. But you think Boeing is better?
Come on, there was a time when Boeing planes kept falling out of the sky for one reason or another (about five years I think).
The point I am trying to make is that both Boeing and AirBus have it hard. Each tries to one up the other and tries different ideas.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Erm no it didn't; the tail was recovered in two pieces, the main structure of the tail and the rudder itself. What was unusual was that the rudder had cleanly separated from the tail.
The tail of that airliner passed all airworthiness checks and has been found to have exceeded its design requirements.
Flight 587 had flown into the wake turbulence of a JAL 747, the pilot followed normal procedures and tried to stabilise his aircraft using the ailerons, which is standard procedure.
When that failed, he used the tail rudder five times to add extra force to his corrections. These imposed enormous strains on the tail structure which was torn off of the aircraft.
Again, the tail did not fail because of any structural weakness, it failed because a load was imposed on the structure that lay outside of the design parameters. Such loads had never been anticipated during the design process, nor had they been experienced before this crash.
American Airlines and Airbus are still fighting over who is to blame. AA claim that Airbus withheld information about the upper limits of forces that can be applied to their airliners, Airbus say that AA did not train their crews correctly.
However, guidelines have been sent to all airlines and the operators of all types of airliner informing them of the possibility of failure of the tail during excessive rudder movements.
And remember that Airbus aren't alone in discovering unexpected behaviours in their airliners. The Boeing 737 seems to have suffered a number of crashes resulting from excessive or abberent rudder movements; notably United flight 585 in Colorado and US Air flight 427 in Pennsylvania.
Best wishes,
Mike.
Why? Why? Why?
Simple. Boeing spent already paid for the new design software that allows them to build without prototypes in the 777 program. Yes, it seems like waste of money to go through the process to design an aircraft that, at the moment, most airlines aren't likely to use. Maybe it is, but it's a gamble, as an earlier poster pointed out.
Consider this. Your primary competition is subsidized by Europoean governments. They've been touting a 747-killer (the 4xx program) for a couple of years now. Believe it or not, the 747 was (and is, depending on the routes) an extremely profitable aircraft for the airlines. Most of your money comes from cargo on overseas routes. 777s and 767ERs can't match that, though they do have a lower per-seat operational cost.
You have to have a practical edge to sell to your customers, even when the market is bad. You own the small/midsize market around the world and even in Europe. Sure, the subsidized company takes a bite of your sales. What you can't have is Airbus eclipsing your technological superiority.
As an added issue, you can't wait until the market appears for the new aircraft. You have to gamble, because modern airliner programs take years to produce a big, soaring hard part. If you wait, Airbus will step in with a new, closer-to-production product, and the preliminary orders will go to them.
Could Boeing do a better job? Well, sure. Any company can. But don't forget that Boeing created the affordable jetliner era (707), the jumbo jet market (747) and the long-range Pacific-certified twin market (777). McDonnell Douglas gets the nod for the small jet market (DC-9), but they're now part of Boeing. So, they don't have an awful track record at picking markets. The added benefit is that Airbus tends to follow the Boeing lead, so they have to spend money on similar design programs in case Boeing hits paydirt.
Amateurs discuss tactics. Professionals discuss logistics.
Airbus is a fly-by-wire plane. Isn't the fly-by-wire computer supposed not to let the pilot perform actions that are outside the specifications for the airframe?
I don't care if the A380 might have a better "concept". Airbus engineers take shortcuts in their design of metal-composite joints that are just plain Bad Engineering, and I'm going to avoid flying on an Airbus jet if at all possible after what I've heard regarding their tail designs from someone familiar with the industry.
:-)
Well I've flown in Airbuses for years and I've never had a tail fin come off
Airbus was expecting to sell 175 aircraft this year. It's now revised its estimates upwards, to 300, despite the major downturn in the air travel business. Clearly, it's winning a lot of business and some of that business is being poached from Boeing.
The twin-deck, four-aisle A380, which can sit 800 passengers in an all-economy configuration or 550 in a mixed configuration, is already flying off the shelves (if you'll pardon the pun) - Emirates, one of the Middle East's biggest carriers has just ordered 41 of the aircraft in what should be a $12.5 billion deal, as reported by the BBC today.
No doubt that the Emirates deal will come in at lower than that figure (in bad times, aircraft manufacturers discount from their book prices) but it's a major win for Airbus and a major loss for Boeing at the same time.
Not only is Boeing trying to compete with what many consider is an inferior product but it's also having to compete in what's increasingly a hostile market - the recent war in Iraq, which was opposed by the majority of the world, won't have improved the chances of American firms trying to win business in the Middle East and elsewhere.
It might be time to dump your Boeing stock if you haven't already.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
the nose in that artist's rendetion is very distinctive.
I think one possibility is that Boeing may be pushing for sales of airplanes based on the 7E7 design to the USAF.
This means air-refuelling tankers, 2-3 VIP transports, a combination AWACS/JSTARS airborne radar platform and Electronic Intelligence/Signals Intelligence (ELINT/SIGINT) planes to replace the aging RC-135W/X fleet.
You are assuming that thye sell out every flight with a bigger plane, empty seats cost money. Also, they can make more frequent trips, which is nice for the traveler to have some choices, while still filling up the plane. Do you think the made up these statistics just for fun, or maybe they actually do know what they are talking about?
Great Linux Site
Do any major airplane manufacturers envision any ground-effect models? Just curious.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
"I still don't see how this plane is going to solve Boeing's sales problems."
Consider that 800 737s are in the air worldwide at any given time. One 737 takes off every 6 seconds on average world-wide (per the NTSB). Its become the DC-3 of the latter quarter of the 20th century and first decade of the 21st.
Also consider that the 737 is coming to the end of its design lifecycle with the -700 series. And the 757 has been partially superseded by the 767, yet nothing quite fills its old niche (737 too small, 767 too big).
Airlines are looking for cheaper to operate, more fuel efficient aircraft that will lure back the business traveler, in the 180-210 passenger size (which probably constitutes a majority of the revenues for regional and US carriers).
The 7E7 fits that description quite well. So thats why they are spending the money - theres a market for this aircraft, the same market Boeing has dominated with the 737/757, and one that will be opening up by the time this aircraft becomes operational. The biggest gain is in operating efficiency (modular electronics, easier crew servicing of aircraft, etc) and fuel efficiency.
As an example, if United could drop its operating and fuel costs both by 10% annually, it would be profitable to the tune of several hundred million dollars, instead of in bankruptcy court.
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo! http://goo.gl/J9bkO
The really cool thing that this article does not :)
talk about is the changes coming for cockpit
instrumentation. One of the things Boeing was
showing off at the Paris airshow was the new
Electronic Flight Bag, which is basically a
multi-function flatpanel display which could
ultimately replace a variety of fixed function
displayes and paper charts. Unlike previous
displays, this one is an 'open architecture'
that can be loaded with new programs and features
over time. Of course the EFB's operating system
and any programs loaded on it will likely still
require FAA certification, which last I checked
required careful auditing of every line of source
code. This begs the questions: What operating
system does this thing run?
am aware of that...but decided to round down and not appear anal...
*blink* *blink*
Belief that Perspectives matter more than Facts = Mark of the Truly Ignorant
The idea is to move into markets which aren't served by massive jumbos and couldn't fill one anyway.
Look at the Atlantic market. Used to be you had to go to NY or Boston to fly to the UK then into only London. Now 757s, 767s, and 777s leave from smaller US cities for smaller UK cities. (Phoenix to London anyone?)
Boeing is betting that the Asian market will start looking more like the Atlantic market in the late 90s than the superhub hub dominated Atlantic market of the 70s and 80s. They figure that the A380 will be more jet than these markets need or want.
On the list price. No-one ever pays the list price, no-one is ever expected to pay the list price.
Their planes are dirt cheap and they are being subsidized by European government aid.
Hello? Illegal US tax breaks for exporters mean anything to you? The ones that they give to big companies like GE, Boeing and Microsoft?
Plus they aren't making a profit that is for sure.
In this market? No. Boeing suffered a first quarter loss of $478m, and they get plenty of nice, fat US military orders. EADS (major shareholders of Airbus) have reported a first quarter loss for 2003 of 93 million Euros, so they appear to be doing rather better.
I think most people following the airplane builders knew the Sonic Cruiser was dead before birth; but I still don't see how this plane is going to solve Boeing's sales problems.
The main problem Boeing is facing is that Airbus has the most efficient long haul carrier as of right now. The 7E7 is expected to be ~20% more efficient than Airbus' long hauler.
Several people here have asked a couple of questions that I think need to be addressed:
1) How is this going to solve Boeings sales problems?
Well, this is not expected to be a cure all for Boeing. Being 20% more efficient than Airbus' best long haul carrier will go a long way to making inroads for sales. Other things being done by Boeing include redesigning the 737 (a short range carrier) with winglets and new composite materials to reduce weight and creating new version of the 747 (the 400ER). The first 400ER was just delivered to Korean Airlines this week.
Internationally, there are other reasons Boeing has a hard time competing.
2) How can Boeing design a plane in such a short time?
I saw someone answer that large reuse of old designs, such as using the same general airframe and what not, made it possible. The problem is that the 7E7 does not use the standard 7x7 airframe. The standard is usually called a double bubble and if you look at any previous 7x7 you will see what I mean. The 7E7 will have a single bubble airframe. This is a new design for Boeing.
How will they develop the plane so fast? Two ways: First a large portion of the electronics and other interior assemblies are being contracted out to other companies. Boeing will act as a large system integrator. Second, Boeing learned how to overcome the prototype manufacturing problems that crop up when moving from paper to the "real thing" with the 777. Using Catia and some other CAD programs Boeing can assemble a plane on computer before assembling it in real life thus allowing them to fix all the pieces that do not properly fit before manufacture. This used to be a major factor in the time to market for planes.
3) How internet ready will it be?
Probably as internet ready as some of Boeings other planes.
Hey, this new aircraft is internet-enabled!
/* new headers for 7E7 */
So it will look like this:
#include "boeing/obsolete/777.h"
#undef FLIGHT_SECURITY
#include "windows.h"
Because people don't all want to travel at the same time. With smaller planes, you can offer a bigger range of departure times, and people will par a bit more for a departure when they want it. The trand has been that way over the Atlantic for quite a while - 747s being replaced by 767/777 or their Airbus equivalents to get more departure times. 747s still needed on the dense routes like Lon-NY because (a) there are that many people and (b) the airports are slot limited, so you want the biggest palne you can get.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
Thanks!!!
-- Karma Karma Karma Karma, Karma Chameleon - Boy George
+1 Brillant
Patent that baby!
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
What a boring, piece of crap, 1960's vintage airliner Boeing is designing.
Oooo....it's 10% more efficient. Who cares? Everybody hates flying now because the airlines have made the experience worse than going to the dentist.
How about they design a cool, comfortable airplane that people actually WANT to travel on?
The year is 2003. We should be flying at Mach 1 or 2 by now. I guarantee you that people would pay 10% more to save 2 hours on a 5 hour flight. Plus, you'd get more passengers per day on a single plane and each pilot would be able to do an extra flight a day too.
Boeing is taking the boring, safe, dull approach that all big companies take when they become risk averse. Unfortunately, the cost of entry into the airplane industry is so high it's unlikely that another company is going to step in with bold new designs.
So for the next 30 years - and probably the rest of my life - we'll be flying at the same speed in the same uncomfortable seats as we did 20 years ago. feh!
And you know because you've been through this training?
The NTSB report has not been finalized, but I suspect the pilots use of rudder was not "typical". Nonetheless, up until this incident, transport pilots in general had not been taught to avoid such rudder inputs even though such avoidence might be presumed to be intiutive.
Incidentally, it has been reported that this aircraft had a previous rudder repair. We will find out when the investigation is finished what bearing this had on the accident.
Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?
Hmmm... I don't mean to be too critical, but you're comment doesn't quite hang together... So it wasn't a failure but a "design parameter" exceedance. Sounds like a weak argument to me - especially when the rudder movements were applied by a pilot trying to maintain control of the aircraft. And, if the movements were so far outside the design parameters, why did the flight software allow those inputs to be applied?
However, I realize that aircraft design is extremely difficult. Especially when you're in an area where accidents are in an regime there is a low statistical probability of occurence with imperfect reconstructablility of the events.
The A300 isn't a fly-by-wire aircraft, the more modern A320 onwards would have prevented such an action.
Best wishes,
Mike.
I think this plane missed the internet boom by about 3 years. I try to spend my time on a plane in quite repose, a short and much needed break from the connected world. No really, how long will it take for them to ban first person shooters during flights. Seriously. If my buddy is about to be sniped by a Georgian rebel in Ghost Recon, you can bet I'm going to shout "Turn and BURN! You got one on your ass! Shoot that M* F*!" really loud. The I'll remember Im on an international flight and not in the Ural mountains on a recon patrol. So will there be strict rules about gaming on flights?
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Patrick Smith, an out-of-work pilot that writes for Salon, encouraged people to vote down the Dreamliner name that the French apparently overwhelmingly approved of.
The airlines don't look at empty seats that way. They see one empty seat as a $2000 ticket that didn't show up on time. For an hour flight, that costs them $10 to $20 and they are willing to risk that for the $2000 they might have got.
Actually no, that's not at all an analogy for what happened. The steering system of the car would most likely not fail, you would just flip the car. I talked to an experienced jet pilot and he said that aircraft have published specs for how many successive lock-to-lock rudder deflections are allowed. No passenger jet could withstand more than a few such successive deflections, regardless of manufacturer. The thing about Airbus planes is that they have fly-by-wire rudder control and for a pilot inexperienced on such a system it requires no great physical effort to flap the rudder back and forth repeatedly. Conventional cable controls tend to require quite a bit more force, and that alone makes it less likely for a pilot to do that sort of thing.
Think about how forces are transmitted as the rudder is deflected: the air hits the deflected rudder, which transmits a force through the rudder attachment points into the vertical tail surface, making the tail want to move in the opposite direction to the rudder deflection. The whole tail and rudder structure basically behaves like one fan or propeller blade, with the tail end of the airframe acting as the hub. The whole airframe section there would experience a twisting force during rudder deflection. Now deflect the rudder in the opposite direction, and the tail will twist the airframe into the other direction. Repeat this processs again and again, and eventually this will weaken the tail attachment points to the airframe. Eventually something will fail. And if you think that only Airbus planes have this problem, maybe Boeing is building their tails out of the same material as the black boxes. Just ask them.
This is because the pursuit of the lowest fares is driving service out of the business.
Think about it: you are going to fly somewhere. You can do it for $600, or $275. Which are you going to take? Which are you going to force your employee, flying on your nickel, to take? Right!
The result, airlines cut costs (and undoubtadly corners) in an effort to keep the seats filled, while playing silly games with travel agents, web sites, and walk-up to ensure that those who can be suckered into paying more, do so. Everyone has to play the same game, because price wins. They are driving themselves out of business in an effort to avoid being driven out of business.
Eventually, taking an airplane will be about as glamorous as taking the bus. And everyone will whine about missing the good old days, when you got a decent meal, planes ran on time, and the flight attendants were perky. They will forget that their airfare back then was three times what it is now, but will still wonder why there is no service and airlines are going out of business.
you should read everything on the internet as if it had "but I'm probably talking out of my ass" appended to it.
Right and wrong. Why do they cut costs at the last minute? They are trying to pull in every dollar that they can. If a route is not selling, it is cut back, or just cut out period. Now they do not expect to sell out every single flight, but they do have a target percentage they want to hit.
In general they will not lower the prices once they have reached this quota, as the rest is profit, but that percentage is pretty high. Also, they never ower the prices on first class, either some rich person will buy it, or they let people with iar miles upgrade - that keeps them happy.
So yes, one empty seat is worth the risk, hell even 2, and so on, but you have to draw the line somewhere, or you will have 5 people on your flight.
Great Linux Site
The Airbus that fell over Brooklyn was a A300. The A300 is an old design which, as far as I know, does not have fly-by-wire controls (they were introduced on the A320, a later model).
:-)
The fly-by-wire controls of the A320, A330 and A340 have hard limits imposed by the computerized controller. This means that the system will refuse to exceed the manufacturer's limits, no matter what the pilot does. In comparison, the fly-by-wire controls on the B777 have "soft" limits - the pilot can exceed them by pulling harder. Whether soft or hard limits are better has been for long a point of argument: basically, some say that hard limits are better because the pilot is not allowed to destroy the plane, even if acting erratically under the stress of an emergency, while some say soft limits would allow the pilot to get out of acute emergencies.
Now, guess what? I heard from people in the air industry that the "composite" materials some blamed for the failure of the rudder were not used on the A300, which is too old of a design!
Just what we need, computers on planes so that people can hack them. However, I do like the MS Fligh Sim idea. 10 bucks says that they will charge you every minute you use the internet. Also, you wont be able to use it on certain parts of the flight. Personaly, I think the internet idea is stupid. 7E7? "e" this, "i" that, give me a break...
Boeing also favors twins, rather than quads for long range
Twins have a better cheaper flight profile: long range twins get to altitude much faster than quads. a twin needs to be able to take off with an engine out, so the normal "excess thrust" is 50%. With 4 engines, an engine out leaves you with 3 engines, so each engine is not 100% of the needed take-off thrust, rather it's 33%. That means that the excess thrust with all four going is much less. when we compare the A340 to the 777, at the same range, weight, payload etc, the excess thrust of the 777 is 3 times as high as that of the A340. Excess thrust is the source of altitude gains and acceleration. So the 777 usually gets up to cruise speed / altitude in 1/3 of the time. in a Singapore to Europe situation this is 30 minutes vs 90 minutes.
For long-range aircraft, which are optimized for cruise, this has a huge impact on fuel burn. On some routes, the block fuel per passenger for the 777 is 60% of that taken on by the A340!
The twin noise signature is less, too. Noise near airports is also vastly reduced, because the twin climbs out very steeply.
Engine maintenance costs are also reduced, since the number of engines maintained dominates costs, not their thrust.
cheers
[1] the structural efficiency of 737's when compared to the equivelant 318-19-20-21 is 15% better!
[2] the wing has a better l/d ratio
[3] the cockpit is much more flexible, which keeps 737 training/cross training costs lower.
[4] the bagage & freight space is much greater in the 737 too!
[5] for the passengers, the bagage bins are larger, too
Not only have more new-generation (737-600,700,800,900) 737's been built than A318/19/20/21s, but the most profitable airlines all fly 737's. I read not long ago that somone calculated that 85% of worldwide airline profits were coming from 737 operations!
cheers
The main reason folks choose one airline over another is: PRICE
Secondary reason for frequent flyers is flyer miles.
Secondary reason for others (90% of seats sold) is: schedule (frequency) or non-stop vs. connection
The 747's, DC10's, and L1011s were very successful because the engines had much better fuel consumption (lower cost) than the DC8 and 707.
Boeing's guess is that if the seat/mile cost is the same for the 7e7 and the A380, then the load factors will be higher on the 7e7. Why? Because they can fly many long routes in thinner markets that can't fill up a A380. And when the you have 2000 people/day on route, with a single A380 flight, and 3 7e7 flights, folks will prefer the schedule choices that the 7e7 flights offer. All of which leaves just a few "mega" corridors where it's possible to run 380's.
cheers
It can be very entertaining for all ages as you can brower the net, check emails, weather, watch movies (on demand), listen to music (on demand) or even cut codes some 30,000 feet in the sky!
All while being curled up in a fetal position in the amazingly "space efficient" seats.
But don't worry, the butt-sensors in the seats will tell you if your leg has merely fallen asleep or whether you are dying from deep vein thrombosis. And with its Internet connectivity, they'll have the ambulance right at the airport when you arrive, without pilot intervention even. Isn't technology great?
> The A300 is an old design which [...] does not have fly-by-wire controls
It actually was an A300-600, which according to some information does have FBW. Event Airbus' website it inconclusive about these details. Regardless, supposedly even in the A320 and later the rudder has mechanical linkages (as a backup, not all controls are FBW), so my suggestion that FBW could lead to excessive rudder use couldn't have been the issue.
> In comparison, the fly-by-wire controls on the B777 have
> "soft" limits - the pilot can exceed them by pulling harder
It's not a matter of pulling too hard, though--the problem wasn't that the pilot deflected the rudder too much, but rather that he fully deflected too often. Imposing software limits on this type of thing is trickier; what do you do, refuse full deflection after X times? That might be doable given enough thought, but you'd want to make sure that some level of control is still allowed. Alternatively you could introduce some kind of "recharging" paradigm, where the pilot could perform one or two full lock-to-lock deflections, after which the system would issue a warning and only allow 50% deflections for the next few seconds or whatever (kind of like waiting for a gun to recharge in a shooter game). I don't know whether this five full deflections limit is within a given time interval (say, within a few seconds), or within a service interval (i.e. before the next plane maintenance). If you're just not allowed to exceed a certain rate of full deflections, my suggestion might work. If OTOH the whole structure is weakened after five deflections and needs servicing (bolt retightening etc.), that of course wouldn't help.
> the "composite" materials some blamed for the failure
> of the rudder were not used on the A300
I believe the A300-600 that crashed did have composite components. From what I remember, that was one of the reasons the whole model family was grounded, to examine if lacking understanding of composite fatigue was to blame.
Fly by wire systems are very large networks of numerical filters with feedback. I would not be surprised if they included such constraints. Still, as you rightly point out, such constraints are hard to "get right".
Boeing still hasn't figured out that their one-dimensional business plan for commercial only aircraft was severely at risk after September 11th.
As a result, 33,000 people were laid off from Boeing since Sept 11th.
Boeing needs to come up with a different business that IS NOT aircraft, aerospace or military related. The People that live in the Cities where Boeing plants are at are tired of this 'every 10 or so year' layoff cycle.
Dolemite
_________________
Save the World! Use a Quote!
As to the use of composites in Airbus products, there has been a steady trend towards increased use of composites in commercial aircraft everywhere, and Airbus has not led this trend by any strech of the imagination. First they were used in fairings, then floors and in some non-critical flight control surfaces such as spoilers, later in primary flight control surfaces, and later as skins in the tail sections. Primary structure such as spars started with the 777 tail. Boeing is now going to build both the fuselage barrel and the wings out of carbon fiber composites. This is very definitely a leap forward!
By the way, Airbus is kind of moving in the same direction with the A380, because the top skin of the body will have some fiberglass glued to the aluminum skin! They call this technical leap "GLARE". Look it up, it's a big advance they say.
But seriously, the highly automated design/build that Boeing is embarking on is the real advance. It will drop Boeings costs to such a degree that they will easily keep whatever share of the market they want, while remaining highly profitable. Boeing Commercial is makeing a 10% return on investment (ROI) even in todays market.
Airbus makes safe airplanes that are comparable in many ways to Boeing airplanes. Remember that the purpose of technology is not to get laid. An engineer may make beautiful things, but what he ALWAYS does is to "make something for a shilling, that any fool can make for a pound". (quote by the British engineer / author Nevil Shute).
Cheers
Ok... Fair warning, fellow slashdot readers. This is a rant. I make no bones about it. If that's not the kind of thing you want to read, then it's probably best just to move on.
I know exactly why they called it the 'Dreamliner.' Because it's probably just the kind of aircraft that the current crop of Boeing execs dream about in terms of continuing to outsource design and subassembly manufacturing, thus worsening the unemployment rate in the Puget Sound region even further.
The 7E7 will be a Great Thing, yes... Assuming that you want to live in Russia, China, Japan, Chile, or one of the other locations where Boeing has "Global Partners" (spit!)
Don't believe me? I was with Boeing for six years before being laid off. In that time, I saw several "Buy/Build" charts for the current crop of aircraft, like the 737, 757, and others. It was outright scary to see how many parts of those planes were designed or built overseas, and shipped in for final assembly here (at least 30% by my estimate).
Don't even get me started on the horror stories I was hearing from friends on the assembly line, shortly before I left, about out-of-tolerance parts causing more assembly delays and problems than had been seen in the last five years.
I think, given the current corporate mindset of short-term gain over long-term survival, that it's only going to get worse. Yes, I could be way wrong, and I will be the first to admit that I'm more than a little biased, thanks to seeing loads of my would-be colleagues in all levels of engineering get the boot (myself as well).
However, I might be less bitter if the company hadn't (a), moved their corporate HQ to Chicago for no good reason that I (or a lot of other folk) could see; (b), Sent most of the engineering services to Russia; (c), Hung out the final-assembly location of the 7E7 like a carrot on a stick, and invited various states to bid on it like some third-rate auction prize.
Boeing has, IMO, long since forgotten or destroyed the values that made it the great company it once was. They've been in a tailspin ever since that disaster of a merger with McDonnel-Douglas, and I would be very much surprised if there were anything other than the defense & space side left in business ten years from now (if that long).
Vent completed. I feel a bit better now.
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
When is it that manufacturers are going to get off their asses and build planes with redundant systems? It was some time ago that a problem was announced that said turning one direction, then sharply the other direction, will result in the tail breaking off completely! WTF? Why in the hell aren't there duplicate systems? It's not like it would be difficult at all to stick a second tail on a jumbo jet... So why does no-one do it? Imagine how many people will be happy to pay more for a ticket on a plane that just doesn't ever crash, even if the tail falls off!
I think the same thing also needs to be implimented for the primary set of wings... Have a second set that isn't too near to the mains, and have all the controls completely independent. In fact, just so there is no single point of failure, why not have a second (one-manned) cockpit at the tail of the plane so that the plane can be flown even if the entire control system malfunctions?
Come on now... People don't fly, primarily because they are afraid of crashing. Improve the safety, and you'll improve the number of flyers. It would help if they could decrease check-in times as well, but that's an entirely seperate issue.
The only real alternative to improving the reliability of large jets is to improve the effeciency of small jets. The problem there is just that the salary for the flight crews can't be made more effecient by much, so it'll always be more expensive than mass air transit. Then again, traveling buy bus or train isn't very popular, so I guess people are willing to pay more for more convient transit... Of course, it just happens to be safer as well.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
True, but using smaller planes leave you more hostage to pilot strikes? Probably a small factor though, especially considering that if all the pilots strike it does not matter anyway.
Maintenance costs might be higher for 3 planes instead of one as well, no matter how reliable. Similar to the mainframe vs. PC server argument.
Michel
Fedora Project Contribut
Sure, all other things being equal, an airline prefers to maintain 1 aircraft, rather than three. What really impacts costs though is numbers of types in a fleet. The smaller planes / fewer types model offers scheduleing flexibility, training cost reductions, parts cost reductions, more markets, improved frequencies, lower noise (big planes make more noise), and so on.
Note that the only really profitable carriers these days are those with a single type. The carriers with the most types are the worst shape. Imagine a low cost intercontinental carrier that operates like Ryan Air, or Southwest! That would really hammer the big guys. Small planes, high frequency, flexible scheduleing, serving markets like London - New York by flying from Stansted to Laguardia or Newark, or even that new Southwest destination out on Long Island! Or Seattle to Chitose or Pusan!
3D GPS approaches and free flight (no airways) will also drive the industry in that direction.
Cheers
A new company, swiss, has replaced swissair. There is a rather large discussion about this replacement, and if it's going to work (I.e. be profitable, be able to stay aloft), in Switzerland.
I concur on that. Although, what carriers settle for now seems to be one type per class, and preferably one make for the whole fleet.
Southwest in USA and Ryanair in Europe get away with just operating B737s, but these are short-haul carriers. The new Boeing 7E7 is still a medium-size long-haul plane, so airlines would still have to fly at least two models to make ends meet.
Michel
Fedora Project Contribut