Slashdot Mirror
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.
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?
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'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."
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.
There are more air planes in the sea than submarines in the sky.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Don't worry, they'd never get off the ground in the first place. Weight and the endless Allow/Deny questions would see to that.
Uh I am a bit fuzzy on the details - used to be an aviation nut - but there is a payoff between fuel used/distance traveled/paying passengers.
Concorde just couldn't ride that fine balance economocally enough.
Then - most countries do not allow supesonic overflights - I remember concorde had to fly subsonic while over land and could only go supersonic while over the ocean on the trans atlantic crossing.
The Concorde was noisy - the engines needed to push a large plane to go that fast are very noisy, no leaky turbofans here - and with airports being so close to cities the overflights over suburban areas were problematic.
There is the issue of the optimum aerodynamic shape - there are basically three wing shapes: Swing wing (think B1 Bomber), works well in subsonic and supersonic flight - it is efficient during both flight profiles, but the mechanics is heavy. Probably the best option for the future.
"Normal" swept wings - not optimal for supersonic flight. Is the optimum configuration for carrying heavy loads long distances.
Delta Wings (Like the Concorde) - great for high speed flight, the Valkyrie bomber used a nice Delta wing design that "rode" the shock wave of supersonic flight at high speed to conserve fuel. It is not an optimum load carrying wing, and is not good for low-speed flight. Delta wings have a poor take-off and landing performance, i.e. it means that it lands and takes off at a high speed, and the landing profile is very "low" meaning it flies low over urban areas when taking off and landing. Also it needs a long runway to take off and land - the larger the plane the longer the runway needed. Whereas a wing for the A380 could be optimised for better performance in this flight envelope and not lose a lot of performance when it is actually airborne, for a delta the line to be walked is much finer.
Thus while the speed of supersonic flight would be great for international travel - plus the coolness factor - and there are technologies available today that were not available to the designers of the Concorde and Valkyrie (composite materials for one) there is still the trade-off of a wide range of flight envelopes (take-off, landing, subsonic flight, supersonic flight), size (the bigger you go the less efficient any design is), fuel use (supersonic flight uses a LOT of fuel - hence impacting plane size which makes the design less efficient and on and on) and then the greenies of course haha that makes large supersonic airlines not economically viable today.
Then also designing a supersonic superjumbo is a lot more expensive than is the case for a subsonic superjumbo. Development time is also much longer due to the newer tech, optimizing the design for all the flight profiles, engine design...
It is just not economically viable. It would actually make more sense to design a passenger liner that would "hop" into space to cross vast distances in the upper stratosphere and then fly down to land like a subsonic jetliner.
Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
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.
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".
Q: What weights nothing. But, when loaded onto an airplane, can keep it from taking off?
A: Software.
Have gnu, will travel.