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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.
Not Boeing, composites. Rutan has made a significant number of aircraft using composites on large scale. However, none within sight is the size of a B787, few intended for large-scale production, and none intended for the 365 days a year utilisation of a commercial airliner.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
You have GOT to be kidding me. Compared to what the airlines are getting, Amtrak in the US gets practically jack shit. It doesn't even have a rail network, it has to rent it from the freight companies. Airlines, on the other hand, get all these nice expensive-as-fuck airports built, generally at taxpayer expense. They also get nice big federal bailouts about every 5 years or so. If the government built and operated a rail network with taxpayer money (which would cost a hell of a lot less than all the interstate highways), rail travel would be much cheaper than even traveling by car.
Time-wise, air travel doesn't really save anything. With all the security bullshit and stops, flying from, say, San Diego to St. Louis takes 8-10 hours. That's about 1800 miles. A TGV-type train traveling at 200 mph would cover the same distance in about the same time. Granted, coast-to-coast travel by train wouldn't be that much fun, but it would certainly work out much better for shorter trips. Considering how much baggage you could bring on a train, it would be worth it for a lot of trips.
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.
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.
I'm impressed by the phenomenal amount of shit everyone's throwing on boeing for this. This is completely par for the course, especially if you ever lived in washington state. About half the state has been employed by Boeing at some point in the past, and then laid off due to random Boeing-ness such as this. Think of it this way: have you ever seen a goverment contractor complete anything on time? Have you ever seen road construction finished in a timely manner? Boeing is a contractor for the government (millitary) and considering the number of airline bailouts the government has done in the past, you could almost consider boeing a government subcontractor for the civilian side as well.
moox. for a new generation.