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Boeing 787 Dreamliner Delayed Again
An anonymous reader writes "It's not just that the Boeing 787 Dreamliner may be unsafe or vulnerable to hacker attacks. At this point, it seems everyone would be happy for it to arrive in any state. The 787's carbon-fiber construction and next-generation technology have pushed back their delivery schedule once again, this time requiring a redesign of the plane's wingbox. Airlines will have to wait 18 more months to get it delivered, which is an extremely serious blow to the credibility of the company and their financial standing, as they would have to pay penalties to the buyers of more than 850 of these planes. And we thought Airbus had problems." Good thing Boeing can still count on its patent portfolio.
it scares the shit out of me just to think if Microsoft made airplanes.
The advantages of the 787 so ridiculously out class it's peers (weight savings with agressive use of composites) that as long as there's nothing forth coming that competes with it, it won't matter. Back in the 90's when I paid 98 cents for a gallon of gas shaving 1 lb off the weight of an aircraft saved airlines 20k a year in operating costs for that aircraft. Now with oil prices so high, imagine the savings by shaving up to 1/3 of the weight of some parts looks like?
This is why Rutan is such a big deal.
How we know is more important than what we know.
I know I'd feel better flying in a plane that was properly made.
Ok, so everybody schedules aggressively, and everybody has unforseen delays. It's kind of funny now remembering how Boeing were crowing over the A380 problems, but what I'd like to know is how the 380 vs 787 delays stack up against each other.
Anyone got a clue?
I would be VERY worried if I heard the aircraft I was in ran Windows... VERY, very worried! It's hilarious when you think about it from a distance, but once in the air... "NononononOOOOOOOO! Please don't cr...!"
Beauty is in the beholder of the eye.
I'm old... and I ain't gittin in one of them
thar newfangled plastic planes never no-how!
Delivery date met or not!
Dadnabit!
Git off my larn!
-AI
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Boeing Vista Forever
At this point, it seems everyone would be happy for it to arrive in any state.
Not me. When I catch a plane to California, I sure don't wanna end up anywhere else!
Well, that depends on what your calculations say. Does running three 787s on one route twice a day work out cheaper than two A380's once a day? What do your projections say: do expect to continue running the same route for the next ten or twenty years?
When the bill is hundreds of millions of [dollars|Euros] you don't make your decision based on whether one is made with a cooler process than the other.
...becasue when your 787 is underwater things are great!
First, Airbus passed them on market share, but managed to mess themselves with their superplane wannabe, leaving huge window for Boeing to dominate the market with their Dreamliner, and it sure looked its going to work. And then they blow it by making the same mistakes as their competitor. Nice job.
for the environment.
Heh heh he. Ha ha ha. Bwah aha ahah ahaha, BWAHAHA AH AH AH AH !!!!!!!!!!!!
* Falls on the floor laughing, remembering all the trash Airbus got on sites like Slashdot and Digg when A380 was delayed *
explain to me what issues are there for which in 2008 we still have to resort to sub-sonic air flights? I wonder that sometimes (and I also wonder on Concorde's failure for the same reason)
Yes, somewhat OT, but it's been bugging me for a while.
A CC-licensed illustrated horror novel
There are more air planes in the sea than submarines in the sky.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Early last year when we got into this discussion it was stated that Carbon Fiber had doubled in price because Boing and Airbus were buying so much of it. Unfortunately carbon fiber isn't exactly like oil and there aren't hundreds of websites tracking the costs minute by minute.
Anyone have any idea what the current price for carbon fiber is?
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
And I guess the executives who agreed on the name dreamliner are starting to regret their decision...
I think justice is served. I remember the smug Boeing remarks all to well saying that the delay for Airbus was sure to break the company (Ok, combined with the Euro political mess they had). Now the shoe is on the other foot I am only to glad to say: How you like me now! Airbus has it problems but the EU is producing some very technological advanced stuff nowadays. I for one am proud to see these flying giants!
In an era where we can communicate around the world with unprecedented ease and speed, shouldn't we be flying LESS?
I'm not thinking about social/pleasure travel, but business travel (which accounts for a large percentage of all flyers). If you work in IT, there are very few tasks you can't accomplish over the WWW, and it seems that most of one's travel obligation has more to do with proving to management that you actually exist. "Face time" is a crutch for managers who don't get it.
Seriously, folks.
"Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it." -- Donald Knuth
When you are talking about near supersonic or supersonic speeds, this is no longer true. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_divergence_Mach_number In fact, drag increases much more rapidly as you approach the speed of sound, but then much more slowly after that point.
Airlines are being faced with the situation of not having the ability to add more and more flights to their schedules from certain locations. So it's not even necessarily a choice between fuel cost X and fuel cost Y. More like "We've got Z number of landing spots, and we can free up three of them with one plane. We can serve other markets with the two open spots the A380 gives us."
The Airbus isn't some magical solution applicable to all situations, and there are many where the 787 is the better option, but it's disingenuous to say the A380 is some kind of relic of a time gone by, a plane that doesn't meet the requirements of today's airlines.
The problem is that the current state of composites being used doesn't actually save much weight. In the future, as our knowledge of composites on large fuselages increases it will probably gain a large advantage over aluminum. As it stands now though the composite vs aluminum weight advantage is extremely small if non-existent. The real advantage to the 787 is the engines. The new engines are where the better fuel economy lies.
Vaporliner?
You seem to forget that not all patents are of the "one-click" variety. Many of them take a lot of creativity and knowledge to pull together.
It isn't surprising that a big company with huge resources and a huge R&D and engineering team (perhaps the largest in the world) considers its intellectual property a valuable asset.
It's amazing to me that people (average, /. reading folks) are so critical of an engineering giant like Boeing. Yeah, they're meeting with delays; IN PRODUCING THE MOST ADVANCED SUPER-JUMBO EVER. If only they had the brain trust that is Slashdot, they surely would have finished this project AND produced economy class flying cars. Well, just as soon as they stop playing WoW and resign from their prestigious job at Geek Squad.
Man, that is so out of date.
Unix Express: Split into three operating companies.
Linux Cooperative:
All passenger bring a piece of the aeroplane and a box of tools with them to the airport. They gather on the tarmac, arguing constantly about what kind of plane they want to build and how to put it together. Eventually, the passengers split into groups and build several different aircraft, but give them all the same name. Some passengers actually reach their destinations.
All passengers believe they got there.
Apple Airlines:
The terminal is neat and clean, the attendants are attractive, the pilots very capable, the planes are beautiful, and you always reach the correct destination... unfortunately they have a fairly small fleet, most planes have no baggage compartment or overhead storage, and the seats aren't adjustable. Frequent Apple fliers are known to attack anyone who suggests that these are important features.
Legacy Air:
The terminal is neat and clean, albeit in an "industrial" style. You have to choose your plane ahead of time, because different planes only fly to different cities, and if your luggage doesn't match your plane you need to hire a baggage consultant to adjust it to fit. But the planes are fast, efficient, and always arrive on time or even ahead of schedule.
Windows Airlines:
The terminal is very neat and clean, with security barriers every few meters. The attendants are attractive, even if it's kind of creepy how much they want to "help" (especially in the restrooms). The pilots are allegedly very capable, though nobody ever sees them and there's an armed guard by the cockpit door. The fleet of jets it operates are immense. Your jet takes off without a hitch, pushing above the clouds, and at 20,000 feet a message pops up on the seat back in front of your asking "Should this plane explode now?". Some idiot always answers "Yes".
don't delay, just put the fix in service pack 1
Massive hiring of the engineers and trademen by a number of other companies. Had the buyer of Adam been smart they would have put together their bid before adam went under. I know several local engineers went to bigelow (and maybe more). I thought that was interesting.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
IIRC, the 787 is about 20% lighter than had they used metal. That is SIGNIFICANT in savings. And if Boeing will push it, and build the BWB (prototype X48), that will cut the average gas use to about 40%. Sadly, they are worried about no sales. Had they had it ready right now, all the airlines would be buying it, regardless of passengers wanting windows.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
that Boeing which has a number of old MS engineers will have nothing to do with installing Windows in the cockpit and only rarely on the craft (they do use dos on the older seat controls).
OTH, Airbus pushes that crap. They (and jeppesen) went to MS to try and get MS to DO-178B ANY version of Windows. After reading it, Gates actually responded that it would be another 1-2 decades before they could even THINK about doing something like that.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
This would actually burn something like 20% less fuel, and you consider that bad?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Because we had high speed transportation via airports for over 50 years from just about any city to another city. And it has been much cheaper than Europe's due to deregulations. Even now, the only high speed rail that really makes sense for the bulk of America (geographically speaking), is the transrapid Maglev (much faster than the TGV and far less energy). Keep in mind that unsubsidized flight is lower price than even our heavily subsidized slow trains. And a new highspeed rail would costs many times more.
About the only reason why we will see high-speed rail come here is the use of nuclear power. Our next president will no doubt be pushing nukes/AE and combine that with the expected carbon tax from EU and we will see change come here.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It was expected that the 787 Dreamliner would be delayed even longer. This is welcome news. Just look at the BA chart.
The biggest problem is the the US Government should have blocked the Boeing / Mc Donald Douglas merger. Then Boeing would have competition and have to actually work to be in business, not just know they had the US Military corporate welfare check in their pockets.
I think Boeing / MD should be broken up now under anyi trust laws.
While Boeing was scheming how far they could gouge the tax payers with the new Military tanker, they just forgot they have work to do on the 'VaporLiner'.
This is the perfect example of a good company caught up in greed instead of what they started as, building airplanes.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
It doesn't free up a spot if it takes just as long to unload, service and load one big airplane as it would two smaller ones. They increase spots by decreasing choices. It is getting more expensive to get direct flights. Two hop routes on bigger airplanes through a hub city are preferred by the airline because they can fill all the seats.
Well, the A350 XWB is coming and offers fairly similar performance. If Airbus learnt its lesson with the A380 delays, it won't come out that much after the 787 and consequently the delay is likely to cost Boeing a lot of sales they would've gotten between its EIS and the A350 XWB's EIS. Both are also susceptible to unexpected, new problems with composites. The materials are new and pilots and aviation experts have expressed their concerns that whilst it's certainly possible to design an aircraft of composites that is durable in flight since the physics can be calculated so well, it can be a different story in an accident. An accident such as overshooting a runway is survivable in conventional aircraft but it's harder to determine how composites would withstand such an impact where forces are more random than in flight. Furthermore its advantages can quite quickly be nullified if it turns out that maintenance will be a lot more costly due to inspection requirements that are imposed after its EIS - changes in maintenance requirements occur always but with the new materials, such changes can be much more radical (and thus end up making maintenance much more expensive).
Your fear is unfounded. First and foremost, there is no evidence to suggest this plane is unsafe. We must compare incidents to flight cycles to know that. Considering how modern aircraft engineering is producing the safest planes historically, the odds are this model will be no exception. (The tolerances built into planes are remarkable. One such illustration of many is the 777 wing load test.) Furthermore, modern aircraft have incorporated composites for years.
I think you received negative moderation because your comment appears uninformed (the 787 is not made of plastic, as you suggest), and you may do well to learn more about 787 construction before expressing concerns.
(As an aside, people were similarly skeptical regarding bicycles, but nearly all high-end road bikes, for example, are built almost entirely from carbon fiber. This goes well beyond the frames, and includes component groups and even wheels.)
The 787 is about replacing all those 737s and 757s which make up the vast majority of the market. Under that profile, you're operating a large number of planes, covering a large number of point-to-point routes. The traffic (and airports) to support the A380 simply don't exist on these routes.
The advantages of fuel savings almost always outweigh the extra carrying capacity of the A380 on almost all routes, which is why the 787 has sold like gangbusters, and why Airbus half-heartedly started developing the A350 to compete. The A350 won't approach the 787's performance by a long shot, though.
These delays are regrettable for the short term, but Boeing is going to end up developing a lot of experience which is going to be a big help for them in the future, much like the 747 program established them at the top of the jumbo space for decades.
The 787 will eventually ship, I have no doubts, and it's going to be a huge success, despite all the current grumbling. Of course carriers who were relying on getting the 787 years earlier will be mad and want some form of compensation, but you don't see a lot of them canceling their orders yet. Waiting times are so long on the 787 that you'd be mad to; there's just nothing else like it in the market.
Well, if "everyone's" attitude towards the 787 is that they'll be happy for it to arrive unsafe mechanically or in IT security, then I will be even happier to take any other plane.
I'd like to think that after 4 planes are slammed into American territory, transforming our country and much of the world into a police state, where $BILLIONS are transferred to these airlines to secure them and their systems, that their basic attitude would change to the point where mechanical and IT safety would be an absolute requirement, not a "nice to have" when a delivery schedule could be delayed.
But obviously the fake security ("simcurity") we've traded our money and our lives for is just another lie.
--
make install -not war
In general, carbon fiber is strong in both compression and tension. Very strong. Where carbon fiber lacks stiffness is in bending and torsion.
However, this is quite easy to overcome. To overcome bending, just use carbon fiber strips with the fiber aligned along the length of a beam. Place them on the top and bottom of the beam; since under a downward load, the top of a beam will experience tension while they bottom will experience compression. You could possibly add a carbon shear web, aligned vertically compared to the top and bottom of the beam, with fibers running at 45 degrees down and up.
To overcome torsion, do something similar, but make it box. Wrap the entire box in carbon fiber with the fibers running at 45 degrees (both 45s).
All this adds weight, however, so you only add stiffness in a particular type of loading if you actually require your structure to be able to take it.
Aikon-
Boeing already has more competition than they can handle. The fact that they lost the tanker bid to EADS/Northrop should tell you something. Boeing can NOT count on US military business, and they have huge amounts of competition in the commercial airliner business. BTW, the commercial and military programs are separated, so there's little likelihood that one actually impacted the other in terms of priorities.
Boeing is a terribly arrogant company but it's not for lack of competition or because they're a monopoly - it comes from a heritage of many years of market superiority that has only recently been challenged. I think, though, that between the tanker failure, the embarrassment over the Dreamliner schedule and debacles like their system integration work for the US government on Project 28 they're beginning to get the message that they may need to get focused again.
"95% of all Slashdot
Just a little factual update: it's been delayed by 18 months total - not 18 more months. Doesn't mean it won't eventually be, but that's not the official word. Check the source.
http://boeing.com/news/releases/2008/q2/080409b_nr.html
Stephan
Well,not quite ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A350
Which, like the 787 is a composite carbon fiber aircraft. Airbus claims considerable efficiencies above the 787. Boeing has 930 orders for the 787 while Airbus has 580 orders for the A350 so this delay is likely to have an impact on Boeing by pushing more customers to Airbus.
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The main rationale for using a hub is fuel efficiency by reducing the overall number of flights. A fuel efficient small plane can tip the balance the other way and make point to point routes economically viable again, as well as allowing less-used airports become hubs (since the number of passengers per plane is lower, you don't need to as many passengers to justify a hub flight). Based on the number of pre-orders the 787 has gotten, it would appear that the airlines all did the math and it came out in favor of the point to point routes.
I am beginning to doubt the credibility behind calling the Dreamliner, next-generation technology. The way this is going, when it ultimately comes out in 2015 (by my reckoning), this is going to be oh-so-last-decade!!!
The biggest problem is the the US Government should have blocked the Boeing / Mc Donald Douglas merger.
They just couldn't compete with the free Big Macs and fries during every DC-9 flight! They had to take action!!
Comment of the year
The problem with A380 is that once-a-day flight strategy might not work on many routes. People want to have some flexibility. Also, there are only 4-5 airports at this point in the USA that actually want and have the capacity to accept A380. Another problem with the A380 is that it's really good for the hub and spoke kind of operators, but it is clear that more decentralized operations with smaller capacity per flight are also very viable and profitable.
Airbus didn't pre-sell too many A380s. Boring has orders for more than 800, IIRC. So a delay would cost Airbus less in penalties for delayed deliveries. Even more significant: If the 787 redesign involves higher production costs or weight (there are weight and performance penalty clauses in the contracts), that's more units for which Boeing will have to eat those costs before they can mark the planes up to the correct price.
Have gnu, will travel.
The first is that our cities are a lot further apart than Europe's, for the most part. The second is that it takes an absolutely enormous capital expense up front to build high-speed rail, and U.S. taxpayers are reluctant to front the money. The third is that we do actually kind of have high-speed rail on some of the routes where it'd be more reasonable.
To get more specific, these are the top four (by passenger volume) domestic air routes in the United States:
1. Boston - New York City
2. Los Angeles - San Francisco
3. Washington, D.C. - New York City
4. New York City - Los Angeles
Of these, #4 is totally unreasonable for high-speed rail, for fairly obvious reasons.
Of the others, #1 and #3 already have service on the Acela Express, which is fairly high speed (top speed 150 mph, averages more in the 80s), though significantly slower than the European standard. It's slowly being upgraded so it can travel its top speed for more of the route, and both routes are gaining passengers, especially as flying gets to be more of a hassle.
The remaining one, #2, is perennially talked about as a good candidate for high-speed rail, but it's just far enough, and has just enough mountains along the route, to be extremely expensive to build the line--estimates are somewhere around $30 billion. Nonetheless it's still officially being planned and preliminary work is underway.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Douglass Aircraft was, for all practical purposes, dead. McD-D had no real interest in building commercial aircraft and pushed much of the process out of the company.
After McD-D lost that big fighter contract, they were dead in the water. Boeing probably could have waited for the bankruptcy sale and picked up the pieces that they wanted. But the "merger" was a bailout for the McDonnell family. Had the company gone under, they would have gotten pennies on the dollar for their shares.
In fact, there are those who suspect that the Pentagon (friends of the McDonnells) encouraged Boeing to merge, using the last stage of the fighter contract competition as bait. It was a real sucker move on Boeing's part. Worse yet, much of Boeing's management has been replaced with McDonnell-Douglas management. That might be why we are seeing Boeing Commercial head down the same path Douglas Aircraft went.
Have gnu, will travel.
Of course, their plan got derailed by the 380 delays and Boeing's headstart kept getting larger and larger. Boeing's problems now just mean that we're back to where we were a few years ago.
The moral of the story is: Airbus wasn't about to die a year ago and Boeing's not gonna die because of this. Both will have setbacks and successes and we shouldn't blow them out of proportion.
If anything, the biggest danger to them is the WTO case because both Boeing and Airbus receive major subsidies.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
I wrote that part from memory. I read all about the XB70 as a kid, so I was fuzzy on the details... thanks for the correction...
Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
It's not that the process is "cool" its that the price of the airplane, and training, or labor changes that might need to take place with it it's introduction take a back seat compared to it's operating cost. Which is basically fuel economy. As fuel prices skyrocket, this only becomes more true. I happen to think that much business air travel will be replaced by improved telepresence, something Boeing must suspect given their investments in it, and that might change things.
Yeah. Boeing made a big mistake when exercising their patent portfolio -- they aren't TiVo!
Sorry, but here on Slashdot there's only one company allowed to hold exercisable patents.
<nelson-voice>
Ha-ha!
</nelson-voice>
I want to play Free Market with a drowning Libertarian.
In fact, many of the airlines were afraid of the 787 for precisely this reason. (A whole airliner? Out of carbon fiber? Won't it just crumble to bits or something?)
Boeing addressed this by bringing in executives from the airlines, and giving them a section of metal body, a section of a carbon fiber body, and a sledgehammer. When they could see that metal dents really easily, and carbon fiber is nearly indestructible, they were much more willing to go with the 787.
Yeah well, I'm sure Boeing have some more creative engineers than you.
Whoosh!
What was that noise?
Oh, another submarine.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
For now, I haven't figured out how to store and retrieve my pictures from aluminum, so for now I'm sticking with CF.
say. Does running three 787s on one route twice a day work out cheaper than two A380's once a day?
The thing is, when the passenger demand level goes down to 2 787's worth, you can't put 2/3 of an A380 on another route. Also, the 787 is just about the right size that it can provide service to a lot more cities than the A380 just because there isn't always that many people who want to move between city pairs at that time of day and/or there aren't enough other planes line up for so many people to connect to.
you will be able to play Duke Nukem Forever on the in-flight entertainment system.
The summary says, "Airlines will have to wait 18 more months to get it delivered," but the original article says the total delay is 18 months.
It doesn't take as long to service one large aeroplane as two smaller ones. The critical path comprises the loading/unloading of passengers and of fuel (these can not legally be performed in parallel). With several gangways and an efficient refuelling system this can be performed more quickly for one large aircraft that only has to be linked up to the loading/unloading "mechanisms" once, than for two small ones that are processes one after the other.
"The advantages of the 787 so ridiculously out class it's peers"
Huh? it's just a 737 but a little longer and full of Chinese plastic. Now the 737 was a darn good player in its day, but there is no way it still "ridiculously out class it's peers" even with better (but eye-wateringly expensive) materials and engines.
The 1/3 weight savings are yet to be demonstrated and half the delays are being caused by engineers realizing theres simply no way they can achieve the claims previously made by Boeing's marketing department.
GREAT! Even since Locke blew up the other one I've been jonesing to get off this damn Island.
for better humidity/air pressure alone i'd choose a 787 flight over a380 alone. lessen the air travel fatigue one gets from long flights. i'd even pay a little more not to feel like cr@p from a long flight.