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Production of Boeing 787 Dreamliner Delayed Again
Hugh Pickens writes "Boeing has discovered microscopic wrinkles in the skin of the 787's fuselage and has ordered Italian supplier Alenia Aeronautica to halt production of fuselage sections at a factory in Italy. 'In two areas on the fuselage, the structure doesn't have the long-term strength that we want,' says Boeing spokeswoman Lori Gunter. To repair the wrinkles, additional layers of carbon composite material are being added to a 787 at the South Carolina factory and twenty-two other planes must also be patched. Production of the 787 has been fraught with problems with ill-fitting parts, casting doubt on Boeing's strategy of relying on overseas suppliers to build big sections of the aircraft before assembling them at its facilities near Seattle. The 787, built for fuel efficiency from lightweight carbon composite parts, is a priority for Boeing as it struggles with dwindling orders amid the global recession. Customers had been expecting the first of the new jets in the first quarter of 2010 — nearly two years earlier than they will be delivered. The delays have cost Boeing credibility and billions of dollars in anticipated expenses and penalties. Orders for 72 planes have been canceled already this year, although Boeing still has confirmed orders for over 800 aircraft."
where I point out that maybe if they'd kept those jobs in the United States instead of tying to save a few pennies or getting a contract or two from a state airline that the parts might actually work right the first time.
Yes, companies that send jobs overseas, I'm looking at you.
"Boeing has discovered found microscopic wrinkles" ? Huh?
... an EADS executive is laughing with glee...
Sounds like the start up of the 747. Boeing nearly bankrupted the company by pushing the envelope in plane design and manufacturing when many people didn't think the business model would work out. They're at the same point again for the same reasons, so we will see if they can do it again.
But Boeing is lots more than the Commercial Airplane group; I believe they are the number one or two US defense contractor so even if the 787 takes a long time to break even, the company will still survive.
If, however, the plane actually flops because of the choices they made (heavy use of composites PLUS heavy outsourcing), then Commercial Airplane may lose enough money to trash the company.
Remember folks, this is why you pay your high end executives lots of money....
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Now Boeing can finally pin the blame for all the delays on another company again.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
All this is because of American companies' belief in complexity. We should borrow a leaf from the Russians who I believe, are champions of simplicity which actually delivers.
Another victory for outsourcing your core competency.
This Youtube video was sent to me from a friend that works at Boeing (not in the commercial division). About sums things up.
The world is going to need more fuel-efficient planes badly. Let's all hope Boeing pulls this off, or most of us will be fuel-priced out of the option of flying.
For something that is meant to go up in the clouds each time looks more like vaporware.
Boeing is designing a permanent fix to the wrinkle problem so future versions of the plane won't have to be modified. The existing fuselage wrinkles, she said, will not compromise the flight safety of the 787s.
The existing fuselage wrinkles might not compromise the flight safety of the 787s, but they will weigh and cost a lot more than planned because of the extra layers of carbon composite material. The added weight will reduce fuel efficiency for the entire lifetime of the airplane, which further increases the cost of use of these planes for the airlines that will be buying them. As for the permanent fix:
Boeing said tests had shown it needed to reinforce areas where the plane's wings join the fuselage.
You can bet this means all future 787s will weigh more than Boeing told their investors they would, which means some companies who slightly prefered 787s over an alternative by, say, Airbus, might also cancel their orders and buy from the competition instead.
I'd rather you rationally disagree than irrationally agree.
They did this for several reasons. The first was to break the unions. The second, and more important, was to help sales. Sadly, America has some of the best knowledge of composites and the RIGHT place for this was here, not elsewhere. At this time, all of the issues that Boeing has is with offshored items (Production for china has been a QUIET NIGHTMARE for Boeing; Many of the parts are of VERY low quality). In fairness, my Wife and a number of friends work for Boeing, so I do get to see info that is not in the main-stream press.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It's wierd - I used to think IT projects were the only projects that were impossible to accurately estimate. A lot of PMs I run into at work seem to think a software project is the same as a construction project, but I think they're totally different. There is little change in the time it takes to pour a certain amount of concrete, run standard electrical for a commercial building, or other construction/product build tasks. In software-land, since everything's so fluid, it's anyone's guess how much time it'll take to fix some crazy bug, install hardware, debug a hardware or software installation, or write documentation. And even when a construction project over-runs its time, you pretty much know exactly how far off you are and how long until you're on track again.
Now this 787 project comes out and blows my assumptions away! Apparently you CAN overrun a construction or build project's time and budget just as easily as IT projects.
From what I've been reading, the fact that Boeing basically outsourced everything but final assembly of the plane to different contractors has come back to bite them. One of my IT specialties is integration work -- and I've worked on a lot of contracted software products that totally don't work when you get their individual parts back and mash them together.
Part of me really wants to gloat and say, "Ha ha, you listened to a bunch of retarded MBA consultants who convinced you that lean production and lowest-bidder subcontracting was the way to go!". BUT, I really can't. Boeing's in a lot of trouble if they can't pull off a major integration/rework effort right away. Airplanes are one of the last things the US actually makes and exports from a manufacturing perspective, so it's important that they just drop everything and figure out what's wrong. Airbus will be more than happy to sell A340s, A350s and A380s to all the waiting airlines.
But deep down, I still think those MBAs should have thought a little bit about how many thousands of parts and systems a typical plane has...
Boeing costing americans money vs airbus today actually bringing in money to the EU.. time to dump Boeing into a shallow grave...
I've been following the whole Dreamliner story since the beginning and this is really disappointing. This is yet another bump in their delivery of what amounts to an awesome and very ambitious aircraft. The Dreamliner really started making a splash when Boeing was down on their luck. It was such a big splash and so ambitious that customers forced Airbus to rethink their much more modest proposal. I was surprised when I saw how soon Boeing was promising to deliver them. No one has ever built an airliner (or anything of that size that I know of) entirely out of carbon fiber. As a technology nerd, I gave Boeing a lot of kudos for being ambitious and pushing the envelope. Alas, it seems poor execution plagues all engineering projects. Before this, it was the bolts. I would give them a break for trying something new but I'm not so sure their customers will.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
I live in the Pacific Northwest, where Boeing used to do most everything. There is a strong belief up here - maybe because we feel screwed by Boeing - that Boeing moved production all over the place basically to bust one of the few strong unions we've had up here in Washington. I'm not a big union guy; but having watched Boeing's management and their treatment of their workers over the last 20 years... that's one place where I think a union is called for. It wasn't that long ago they laid off thousands of workers because of a downturn, yet found it in their hears to give the top-tier management very large (20% or so, IIRC) pay raises at the same time.
I've had friends who worked for Boeing (engineers, mostly) over the past couple of decades. Most of them have gotten out. When they started, there was a lot of pride amongst the workers at the company. That all went away, at least in the groups my friends worked in. And I do believe that companies whose employees are proud of their work do a better job than those who've stopped caring because they feel upper management has stopped caring about the product.
#DeleteChrome
The problems are with barrels that aren't even close to production yet. Boeing (in as much as you can believe them anymore) says that this will not delay the production of the 787 (to first flight) of the 787 any further than it already has been.
This information is out there, is it so difficult to go find it before publishing wrong info instead?
http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/flightblogger/2009/08/breaking-structural-flaw-halts.html
Oh yeah, and the problem with the sections isn't with the skin, it's with the stringers behind them. It leads to wrinkles in the skin, but the real fix is to not mess up the stringers in the first place.
The statement that this casts even more doubt on the outsourcing model set up at Boeing under Alan Mullaly is most definitely not diminished by the inaccuracies in the reporting of these details.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
When my mom discovered found wrinkles around her eyes and mouth she had them fixed fairly cheaply with Botox. Maybe Boeing can do the same.
Flying in general is extremely safe.
Plus 53% of Aircraft crashes are caused by Pilot Error. A total of 67% are caused by "human factors" (e.g. Human Error, Sabotage, Maintenance mistakes etc). 11% by weather. Which leaves a 21% chance of mechanical problems.
Which tells me you should be a lot less concerned about who builds your aircraft and instead look at how well trained your pilot and the ground crew are. Because they are more than likely the ones who will get you killed.
PS - Plus Boeing aircraft have crashed over five times more than Airbus Aircraft (but are also much more popular, so reading the above it isn't surprising).
More credibility? Really? Sources?
This plane has had a long history of show-stopper problems, delays, more problems, and more problems. And it still hasn't flown once.
As an airline passenger, this is not making me feel like this is a plane I can trust or should want to fly on. And yes I can choose to fly airlines that haven't ordered and won't use the 787. Pretty easy since it's not exactly selling like wild anyway.
EADS would have every right to gloat but they're screwed up with 380 problems and internal issues. Both companies look like jokes right now.
Sig for hire.
Lesson learned:
outsource known manufacturing, sound technology is easy.
outsource 1st time manufacturing, cutting technology is not so easy.
If the 787 provides the target efficiency that Boeing was looking for/advertising, then these delays are worth it. Otherwise, it a total management screw up.
had Boeing REALLY cared about fuel, they would be pushing their BWB/X-48. That would have used less in a 380 class craft than a 737 does today. A craft like that would be perfect for the military in Tankers, Cargo, and perhaps b-52 replacements. Likewise, it is the ideal craft for cargo or passenger/cargo mixed. ABout the ONLY big problem with it, is that a number of passengers want the windows (not a big issue with cameras today), And a number of them will not like the feeling in a bank, even a shallow roll. Of course, the smart thing is to store cargo on the outer side and then do a double decker passenger towards the middle. I have little doubt that said aircraft would have PLENTY of sales
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
They should just do what we do in software. Slap a beta label on it and ship it out the door. Then act condescending when someone complains that their plane crashed.
"PS - Plus Boeing aircraft have crashed over five times more than Airbus Aircraft (but are also much more popular, so reading the above it isn't surprising)." Interesting. Citation?
I "discovered found" a mistake; production of this story should have been delayed because of microscopic wrinkles in the sentence structure.
Read my blog: HansMast.com
The US spends $500 million per launch to send guys up to the space station on a $2 billion space shuttle...the Russians use a dumb cheap soyuz rocket, and
can break even by selling a seat on the ride to any schmoe willing to pay 20 million bucks.
Is that better?
With Boetox?
Russian planes fly with airlines worldwide. Just two examples:
Tu-154 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-154 "The aircraft has been exported and operated by about 17 non-Russian airlines, as well as a number of non-Russian airforces. It remains the standard airliner for domestic routes across Russia and other states of the former Soviet Union (CIS). The Tu-154 is one of the fastest civilian planes in operation (975 km/h) and has a range of 5280 km. Designed to handle unpaved and gravel airfields, it often operates in extreme Arctic conditions of Russia's northern territories."
(I've flown on it. Nice plane.) pics at airliners.net
The older Tu-134 "has seen long-term service with some 42 countries, with some European airlines having made very intense use of the 134 (as many as 12 takeoffs & landings per plane daily)." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-134
Citation Provided.
Accidents by aircraft type.
Fatalities by aircraft type.
The Boeing 737 NG, 757 and 767 have crashed more times then A330 and A340's. If we include older aircraft such as the B737 (Classic) and B747 vs the A320 and A300 we have the same story.
Airbus' highest fatality for a single aircraft type A300 - 1423 deaths.
Boeing's highest fatality for a single aircraft type B737 - 3990 deaths.
That being said, if you are boarding any type of aircraft you have already survived the most dangerous part of your journey, the drive to the airport.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Basically the rule is that modern airliners are much less likely to crash than older airliners were. Until the recent Air France crash off Brazil, both A330 and B777 had never had a fatal crash, and had similar usage profiles (there are probably more B777s in service, but the A330 has been around a few years longer). A340 and A380 are also in that category, but there are much fewer of them in service. For short range, higher usage craft, the 737-NG range and A320 have about the same safety record (per miles flown/passengers carried), orders of magnitude better than the original 737. The company that designed the plane doesn't really make a difference at the end of the day.
To this I'd kinda respond with the same thing we do in our own industry: this plane is pretty much in the "beta test" phase. It's under development and not in use except for testing yet. The problems discovered now might hurt Boeing via a shifted deadline, but judging the safety of the plane based on it's testing phase (where they're SUPPOSED to find problems) is a bit like saying that Firefox sucks because back when you tried Phoenix v0.3 it crashed constantly.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
For those who have no idea what the parent is talking about, I Googled it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-48
If the 787 is having so many problems with a mostly conventional design, imagine how many problems that X-48 airframe would have.
Comment of the year
The statement that this casts even more doubt on the outsourcing model set up at Boeing under Alan Mullaly is most definitely not diminished by the inaccuracies in the reporting of these details.
Does this mean what it actually says or do you have an accidental double-negative there?
I hope Boeing continues to take the same approach to plane design that Nintendo does for Zelda games or Blizzard does for ANY kind. Take the time to get it right and make a quality product. I don't want them half-assing it to get it into production, then the thing falls apart when I'm flying it in. That would be very bad. I can live without the 787 for a couple of extra years if it means that using it won't cost me the time I have left on this earth.
Under which category -- human factors, weather, or mechanical problems -- would "double bird stike" fall?
That being said, if you are boarding any type of aircraft you have already survived the most dangerous part of your journey, the drive to the airport.
I don't think that's true. Sure, aircraft are much safer per mile driven, but I don't think that they are safer by trip. If the drive to the airport is a single event and the flight is a single event, then the flight is likely to be more dangerous. source
Of course, it rather depends on the length of your drive...
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Of course, there are more than 10X the number of 737s (6009+) than 300s (532), so not really surprising. Technically, the 737 is a much safer aircraft, more so since it has been flying since the 60's, while the 300 was 70's.
What I find interesting is the fly-by-wire of Airbus. Their systems control the flight and a number of the pilots that have crashed them (and obviously lived) have stated that they tried to take various actions while the aircraft denied it to them or even overrode them. If so, many of the pilot errors are actually aircraft errors.
This is part of a reply to another poster. But I thought I would move it up.
Now, what Boeing has done is not only have they created a radically new design in aircraft they have also redesigned their entire design and production process at the same time. Sort of like throwing away your entire code base and then deciding to migrate everything from OSS/AJAX tool sets to MS Visual Studio .Net and rewrite everything all at once. After firing most of your staff and replacing them with distributed off shored development teams.
Bringing a radical new aircraft design online has got to be a difficult R&D problem to begin with. But on top of that they are redesigning their entire end-to-end production process.
This is insane. I would never as a manager, or owner of my own business, gamble on this scale. One or the other but not both. Esp. when lives are at stake. This points to a complete breakdown of management.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Yes they are a defense contractor. There's the rub isn't it? If they get into serious trouble it may be decided they are "too large to fail" and the government, in other words the taxpayer, will generously bail them out. So the MBAs can give themselves bonuses for screwing up projects.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
There have also been 12 times more 737s built than A300s. 1423 * 12 = 17076.
Weather, I'd assume. The weather was sufficiently nice for undocumented geese (invaders from our shifty-eyed neighbors to the north, I believe) to take to be in the air at the same time as people felt like stuffing themselves in a mailing tube and shipping across the country.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
It used to take six hours to drive to the airport, on a two lane highway frequented by logging trucks and affectionately nicknamed "Moose Row."
There are ten times as many 737s as there are A300s so 3 times the number of fatalities is still 3 times safer.
Under which category -- human factors, weather, or mechanical problems -- would "double bird stike" fall?
depends if they hit the pilots, a cloud, or the engines ;)
An Airbus flight would have to be 50% off for me to even consider it.
You'd risk your life for a 50% discount? EIther you're very brave, or you're just posturing.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Woops, guess I am a little behind schedule
As an airline passenger, this is not making me feel like this is a plane I can trust or should want to fly on. And yes I can choose to fly airlines that haven't ordered and won't use the 787. Pretty easy since it's not exactly selling like wild anyway.
Huh? Boeing has 800 orders for it before its launch. That is basically unheard-of in the industry. Name any successful airplane - none of them had that many orders prior to launch.
As for your "not gonna fly it because it's got pre-production problems" stance, I'd like to know what airliners you do feel comfortable on so I can list all the incidents and accidents they were involved in prior to launch, and see if you still feel as comfortable flying them afterwards.
From what I've been reading, the fact that Boeing basically outsourced everything but final assembly of the plane to different contractors has come back to bite them. One of my IT specialties is integration work -- and I've worked on a lot of contracted software products that totally don't work when you get their individual parts back and mash them together.
I'm preaching to the choir, perhaps, but this is a very, very very important point: Don't EVER outsource your core competence! Every company has a core strength, their purpose for existing. It does change with time: IBM started out with office furniture and office equipment, slowly moving through adding machines, typewriters, through to early computers, though to today as a major IT consulation firm. But at every step of the way, IBM had a clear core competence that they guarded fiercely with NDAs and big research spending, that continues to this day.
They have not lost their core competence - if anything, IBM has strengthened it even as it has redefined what that core competence is.
Are you an executive? Remember this: Every company has their "mojo" - their "secret sauce" - the service that defines the value of the company. Find out what that is, and work like crazy to strengthen and preserve that core value. Outsource whatever you like so long as you don't outsource that core company value.
For example, a logging company may maintain a small power plant at its lumber mill, for various reasons. Generating power is likely *not* part of the core competency of the logging company, so if it can be done cheaper by a power company, it's probably a good idea. But the logging company had better not subcontract logging to other firms for the lowest bidding price, because this represents ths core value of the company, and by doing so, you become a dead-weight "middle man" that your customers will eventually want to eliminate. Your company loses its reason for existing.
If your company builds airplanes, then you had better focus on being able to build airplanes, and not source out building airplanes to other companies - else what value does your company really offer?
It's a bone-headedly simple concept, and for some reason, it doesn't seem to be well taught in business colleges.
Why?
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
How old do *you* think is my fuselage?
As a mid-career aerodynamics engineer in the American aviation industry, the one trend that I wish I could reverse is the perception that "the process is the product", or that with suitable care and attention to composing Interface Control Documents (ICD's), that the actual act of doing detail design - of applying the lessons learned by a successful technology company over decades of tech and product development - is a fall out.
It seems to me that Boeing's touting its expertise as a "systems integrator" is a direct reflection of this attitude. You can only achieve the expertise in "systems integration" if you have learned the lessons by actually doing. For fifty years or so, this was accomplished in this industry naturally - young engineers would come start their careers doing basic work (designing clips and brackets, plotting data, composing reports under senior engineers' supervision). Do that long enough, and you gain enough experience to begin to know where issues may lie, and procedures to take to avoid them. Eventually, one could move into a position of seniority where you would be the one overseeing younger engineers, and directing them what and what not to do.
Nowadays, it seems that the staffs in Systems Engineering (or SEIT) have no practical experience whatsoever. They are given checklists, written by the last wave of experts prior to their golden parachute retirement party, that tell them the most basic questions to ask and the most basic data to be documented, but don't have the hard won knowledge required to push the issue when required. Too often, design reviews are reduced to a SEIT team making sure their document list is complete - and not bothering to check that the information contained in those documents are accurate or applicable.
Great book on the development of the 747, "Widebody", by Clive Irving. In it, he points to the fact that what enabled the 747 was a direct result of all that came before it in Boeing's experience - from a monocoque fuselage in the 247 (and the importance of doing wind tunnel testing - and engineering - in house lest the results be pinched by the competition), through the complicated systems on the B-29, to the swept wing and podded engines of the 707. And the players in the 747 development were instrumental in all of those previous projects. He stresses the "design bibles" that were compiled across the technical specialties at Boeing - paid for in some cases by pilot lives (Eddie Allen and others). During the days of competition with the USSR to develop an SST, those design bibles were guarded as if they were state secrets.
Fast forward to today - Boeing outsources not on a build-to-print basis (as you would to a subcontractor), but a total systems solution. They are trusting their subs to design primary structure and produce them - a situation unimaginable in the old days. Maybe they could get away with that approach once - but if you do pursue that path, after you do this once when do you learn and how do you teach the next generation for future design projects? You don't. Who will be available in your home organization to raise the bullshit flag when a low cost subcontractor promises something that is patently impossible? No one, at least no one with the background of experience and technical reputation to be able to stand up to management, badge on the table, saying this shit won't fly.
Unfortunately for Boeing, and the US, I feel they have already mortgaged their ability to pull off this outsourcing by bleeding their technical staff over the past decade or so. They will eventually pull the 787 program together, and it will eventually pull a profit - lack of competition will insure that - but the break even point on this program will continue to slip to the right, just as it did on the L-1011 and the DC-10, and you can see what those programs did to their respective companies.
It is true that Airbus airplanes are more dangerous than Boeing counterparts in general. But, if you take only airplanes with correct maintenance, Boeing airplanes are dangerous as Airbuses. The thing is, Airbus products are cheaper and that leads to cheap buyers, the end of the story you already know. Composite materials are a bad choice right now. It's very hard to evaluate fatige in the long run because they start to break from the inside out. Magnaflux and x-ray are not effective on composite materials and you would need one hell of MRI to really verify fatige in those parts. The 787 does not bring anything really new to the table besides high maintenance costs, honeywell has been selling similar avionics for years to embraer. Boeing had the chance to bring Airbus down and now it's taking a bite from Embraer and Bombardier on regional airplanes (737,3)
Some people would like to look *good* in the coffin.
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
I don't disagree. And it is especially hard to judge the quality of composite parts when they are not being made in-house. That was a very questionable decision on the part of Boeing.
Actually, while I do not have up-to-date statistics to hand, I might have to disagree with "... if you take only airplanes with correct maintenance, Boeing airplanes are dangerous as Airbuses."
Boeing, McDonnell-Douglas, etc. have mechanical backups to electronic control systems. The design decision to make Airbus entirely fly-by-wire appears to be behind many of its more spectacular failures.
As I have stated, I cannot say with certainty that the statistics are entirely on my side there. But it sure appears that way to me from where I sit.
Please stop spreading bullshit. Tn the history of aviation there are far more crashes caused by pilot error than caused by fly by wire. Also, flying Boeing is potentially much more fatal.
Let's compare the statistics for the A320 family and the Boeing 737 family - that's the airplane you are most likely to fly.
Of the 6000 delivered Boeing 734 planes there were 144 hull-loss accidents resulting in 3847 fatalities. Of the 3958 delivered A32x there were 20 hull-loss accidents with a total of 631 fatalities.
Yes, that's right. There are only 1.5 times more delivered Boeing 737 but they have a 5 times higher hull-loss accident rate a 6 times higher fatality rate. Correcting for the same number of machines there would be 4.8 times more hull-loss accidents and 4 times more fatalities at Boeing.
Maybe you should change your sitting location.
Ah, by the way, A32x is pure fly by wire.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
A300 and B737 is wrong comparison anyway because the vastly different aircraft size.
Let's compare what is comparable: B737 with A32x. There are only 1.5 times more B737 but with 6 times more fatalities*.
Or B767 with A330: 1.54x more B767 were built but with 2.4x more fatalities.
I am not sure with what bird to compare the A300. Maybe B727? There were 3.26x B727 built than A300 with 3.28x more fatalities, so that one looks even.
It looks that since Airbus has started their fly-by-wire family, their accident rate got much lower than the accident rate of Boeing machines.
*I count only the hull-loss fatalities, not the hijacking ones.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
... Airbus is going to eat it on the over sized beast they bet on, and the 787 is likely to look like the right size going forward....
Then, when you've recovered from you fit of national penis size competition angst, I wonder what you'll have to come up up with when the A350 files?
Boeing was doing it right when they designed the 777, which is and has been a massive success (it killed the A340's market almost completely, two engines are cheaper than 4), but Boeing forgot that time marches on and that truly large planes like the 747 or the A380 will still be needed for the forseeable future as large hubs are going nowhere in a hurry. Boeing was lost with the whole Sonic Cruiser thing and wasted a lot of time before they came up with a new concept that wasn't so radical as to scare customers off (which the sonic cruiser almost certainly did).
Boeing's back-tracking to do the 747-8F when Airbus was flopping around with the A380 delays was a good concept in order to capitalise on the market need for large freighters (the A380F was cancelled after UPS and Fedex cancelled their orders), but it was something that was done in the spur of the moment and the passenger version, the 747-8 has been a major flop, and with only Lufthansa having ordered any there have been reports atht it will be cancelled. But the fact that Boeing did try to get back into the large passenger plane market shows that they themselves would have designed and built the A380 if they had know that there would be a market for it.
And national penis size competition guys like you would then be crowing about how the US was making the world's biggest passenger plane instead of engaging in envious relativsim because, in all honesty you don't give a shit about the 787 or how good or bad it is (economics etc), becuase you certainly didn't give a shit when you were buying and driving humungous cars that guzzle gas. No, you care about not having the biggest or the fastest.
You seen that flying wing concept that Boeing and others have been working on in recent years? That will be the next chance for the endless duel to duke it out again over who makes better (read bigger) planes, especially if they run on hydrogen and need huge space for the tanks.
Kill the income tax, institute the "Fair Tax", and we can say goodbye to manufacturers doing everything in their power NOT to build anything in the USA, or going broke when they try. To paraphrase Bill Clinton's 1990 campaign for President, "It's the income tax, stupid!"
I travel to the airport by metro, you insensitive clod.
The Boeing 737 family was introduced 20 years before the Airbus A320 family. If you want to compare the safety of the planes you have to take into account some factor reflecting quantity of usage (e.g. number of flights, distance flown, time flown) and changes in quality of pilot training, quality of air control training, quality of medical care for crash victims, etc. Without at least a couple of pages of detailed explanation of how you're controlling for all variables any statistics you throw around are irrelevant and any conclusions you draw are invalid.
Wow, these posts suggest Boeing has completely forgotten all the lessons it promoted for the 777 jet. There was a TV series and a book called 21st Century Jet which detailed the construction of the 777 and it was, as far as projects go, a triumph. It is a fascinating read. From memory one of the reason it was such a success was because they fostered an atmosphere of complete openess, not getting into blame wars and generally just knuckling down and solving issues. Sounds like all that has been forgotten in their rush to get their "dreamliner" out in time to compete with the Airbus 380.
It doesn't matter much because the number of Boeing 737 airplanes produced in those 20 years before A320 was introduced was quite small in comparison to the total number made (about 1350 machines). There were also about 450 fatalities before 1988. So those numbers can tell that while earlier Boeing 737 machines were even more dangerous than the more modern ones, 737 still sucks in comparison to A32x (1.17x more machines out there, but 5.38x more fatalities or 4.6x more fatalities at the same amount of machines, all other things being equal - and all other things are equal since the quantity of usage is the same (as many flights as possible), the pilots on average being not much different and - given a full hull-loss - the survivability rate of a such crash often being about zero.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
I'd argue that plane safety is probably more related to the number of trips, while car safety is more related to number of hours. You always hear that takeoff and landing are the most dangerous part of an aircraft journey.
In any event, it is probably not correct to say that the trip to the airport is more dangerous than the flight, unless you live far from the airport.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
The 737 entered service in 1967. The A320 entered service in 1988. To get meaningful numbers, you need to compare accident rates per total airframe cycles of aircraft manufactured after 1988. But, for an off-the-cuff response using the Aviation Safety Network, the 737-400 first saw service in 1986, so if you compare the hull-loss rate of all 737s, starting with the 737-400 to those of all A318, 319, 320 and 321s, you'd still need an order of magnitude difference to prove anything. For raw numbers, however, a total of 20 737-400, -500, -600, -700, -800 and -900 hulls have been lost to all causes. Similarly, 21 A318, A319, A320 and A321 hulls have been lost.
I don't know how many cycles they have between them, but the evident conclusions are:
A. It's a lot safer to fly now than it was thirty years ago.
B. There's no "ugly" difference between the A320 and the B737, either in favor or against FBW.
Expect Boeing to be asking for "bail-out" money shortly, blaming their woes upon the "down" market, rather than on their near-sighted "cost-cutting" where it belongs.
Meanwhile, the bean-counters will be gently wafting away on their golden parachutes, searching-out other American corporations to ravage.
Regards;
Delivered hulls? Raw fatalities?
You're doing it wrong.
Instead of hulls, you need to be looking at flight hours. Yes, looking at per-hull is better than just saying "more deaths on a Boeing," but it doesn't address the (strong) probability that the Boeings have accumulated more flight hours--the 737 series was introduced in 1967, the A320 in 1987.
If you really want to do it right, you need to compare not only for flight hours, but fleet age. If you were to compare a 1967 737 to a 1987 737, you'd find substantial differences between the two, and undoubtedly a commensurate difference in safety record. If you want to compare between the A320 and the 737, you need to account for design changes based on a twenty-year advance in the state of aviation (not to mention the age of the fleet--twenty years and umpteen thousands of cycles does Bad Things to aluminum, so the Boeing is already starting off in negative territory compared to a brand new 'Bus).
Finally, you probably also ought to adjust for passenger loads. If an airline flies Boeings on routes with higher passenger load factor, the number of passengers killed per crash will be higher than if they fly Airbuses at higher load factors.
(Yes, I have done aviation safety studies. Can you tell?)
"Make it ten--I am only a poor corrupt official."
--Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains), Casablanca
The number of crashes by Boeing or Airbus are meaningless by itself. Since Boeing has so many more flights you have to compare the rate of accidents for which Boeing is generally better: http://www.airdisaster.com/statistics/
Purely out of curiosity, could any aircraft nerds confirm when the last major totally new aircraft (ie. not a refresh of an existing design like the 747-400) was? I'm fairly sure that with the exception of the A380, there hasn't been much new in some time.
Very interesting stats. One thing that I cannot quite understand is why buses are so good, and particularly why they beat trains. My common sense had lead me to think that buses shouldn't be much more safer than cars (probably somewhat safer because of lower speeds and less reckless driving, as well as less chance of fatal incident, but on the other hand there are more people on a single bus than on a car), but obviously I was wrong. Well, at least it's good to know that I wasn't that much off, and rail is still consistently in top 3...
Any educated guesses as to why the stats are that way?
I admitted that I did not have the statistics... so I wasn't spreading bullshit. But you are.
No statistics is better than garbage statistics. You could at least make an effort to do it right.
Flight hours... not number of planes delivered. Also, keep in mind that planes delivered 20 years earlier were built with 20-years-older technology. The numbers as you have given them prove nothing.
And what about maintenance? Where were those planes flying? Were they maintained properly? There are a lot of very significant things missing from your figures.
By April of 2003 the 737 fleet had logged over 124 million hours. In comparison, by December of 2007 the A320 family had logged just under 70 million hours. You're comparing apples to oranges. The Boeing fleet is 20 years older, and has many, many more hours than the Airbus fleet.
You don't make the poor richer by making the rich poorer. - Winston Churchill
And I would also like to point out that I was clearly and specifically referring to control system failures, not "hull loss".
I looked into it, and the numbers include people killed by the trains (e.g. people crossing tracks, falling from the station platform, squished between the train and platform, hit at crossings). Buses are easier to stop and tend to move slower, so they don't kill as many people apparently. Both buses and trains seem to kill a negligible number of passengers during transit.
By the way, the data seems to be British, so things might be far different in other countries. For instance, the US probably doesn't look good with rail recently :(
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Purely out of curiosity, could any aircraft nerds confirm when the last major totally new aircraft (ie. not a refresh of an existing design like the 747-400) was?
Probably the Boeing 777 if you're just talking big planes. But if you want to count regionals, then there have been some more recent models in the ERJs and CRJs.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Of the 6000 delivered Boeing 734 planes there were 144 hull-loss accidents resulting in 3847 fatalities. Of the 3958 delivered A32x there were 20 hull-loss accidents with a total of 631 fatalities.
Yes, that's right. There are only 1.5 times more delivered Boeing 737 but they have a 5 times higher hull-loss accident rate a 6 times higher fatality rate. Correcting for the same number of machines there would be 4.8 times more hull-loss accidents and 4 times more fatalities at Boeing.
Now compare while factoring in age or number of takeoff/landing cycles. For the 737NG, they even out.
IMHO, spreading deliberately misleading incomplete information is just as bad as spreading bullshit. So please stop.
Yes, I have done aviation safety studies. Can you tell?
No, actually I can't. As far as I know there are two estimators of aircraft type and airline safety... fatalities per passenger-mile and fatalities per passenger flight, and you mention neither of these.
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Busses tend to move pretty slowly, they also tend to be pretty big and sturdily built. When a bus crashes with a car the bus and it's passengers tend to come off much better than the car and it's passengers. Coaches move quicker but still slower than cars and still tend to come off best in a collision.
Still it does surprise me that they quote busses as safer than trains per-mile (per-trip and per-hour can be obviously attributed to short slow trips) the tables in wikipedia don't seem to have much info on the gathering of the data (the linked source just says it was from a "DETR study" whatever that is (maybe a reference to the UK department of transport given the references to railtrack and the fact that iirc dial.pipex.com is a british ISP).
The source also claims that a lot of rail deaths were due to things other than actual train crashes (people trespassing on the tracks falling off platforms and similar) . It does not state whether these are included in the figures in the table and whether similar deaths related to road transport use were included.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
We (overseas people) have the same right to get those jobs in a global economy.
Sure you do! Likewise, we people have the right to do what we think is best for us regardless of your perceived "rights". Keep that firmly in mind: too many other countries seem to think that the United States (or China, or any other major industrial power) is somehow obligated to share. We're not.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
With Boetox?
+5 Fucking Epic
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
corrosion caused by water has even killed people _on_ airliners!
Yes, because you're closed loop car manufacturing arena does *soooooo* well... .
You're not "sharing" idiot. You're competing. Or failing to.
Your crash numbers don't seem to exclude aircraft flown as freighters, a number that would disproportionately include the 737 (older aircraft often end their service lives as freighters--boxes don't care how bad the airplane looks, passengers do), so by looking at "hull-loss" accidents, you're going to have a higher number of accidents. I concede that accounting for this is going to make the fatality-per-crash numbers even worse for Boeing, but again, we have so many confounding variables here that the meaning of your results is unclear without explanation of your data, definitions, assumptions, etc.
"Make it ten--I am only a poor corrupt official."
--Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains), Casablanca