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Boeing's 787 Dreamliner Takes Flight
Bordgious and a number of other readers sent word of the 787 Dreamliner's first flight after two years of delays. The four-hour test kicks off nine months of airborne testing. Aviation Week has video of the test flight and a timeline of the 787's development. Here is the flight path. 840 of the planes are on order now, down from a high of 910, as some customers canceled orders due to the delays.
Boring, not at all. This is a revolutionary plane, Boeing are looking at 25% less running costs and 30% less fuel than the 767 it replaces - I would say rather an achievement, if a litttle later than advertised!
I still marvel at the fact that we can pack a bunch of evolved monkeys into a big steel box, fill it up with stuff that burns, cause thousands of controlled explosions every second to rotate big spin-y things and cause the contraption to soar through the air (and actually land in a controlled fashion).
Call me old-fashioned.
If you've never had the chance to go, check out the Future of Flight museum in Everett. It's an awe-inspiring tour of the Boeing factory where you get top-down view of the factory floor. It's the largest building in the world, with enough room to fit all of Disneyland inside. (and then you'd have 12 acres for parking)
Cars are made on assembly lines, but planes are too large to use the same techniques. They do it anyway.
(Sorry about any munged text here; /. previews as one character wide, 200+ down.)
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ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
If you just want to watch the flight with all the blah-blah in the post, this blogs video has it without much lead-time garbage. http://www.airlinereporter.com/?p=2491
You're not old fashioned at all.
Now excuse me, for I must send this package via gyrocopter to the Prussian Embassy in Siam.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
It's the vibe of the thing.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
Compared to an aluminum airframe? Are you kidding?
Aluminum has zero stress endurance limit. That means that it WILL crack eventually.
And why don't you ask Hawaii Airlines about corrosion problems with aluminum?
Composites are much more reliable and have much lower maintenance costs.
There are a lot of composite parts in the triple 7 and they are well documented to be more reliable than the aluminum ones in the 767.
Why?
Be specific, list computer modeling you have done, as well as any weakness in the chemical compounds. Please link to appropriate chemical analysis
What's that? you can't do that? STFU.
He doesn't have to. Boeing themselves had admitted to some fairly serious issues with cracking in the airframe and wings, cracking that their computer models didn't predict. We're talking about an airplane in which major sections are literally baked together in a kind of giant oven. People have every right to be concerned about this aircraft until Boeing has proved that it's safe. From finance, to climate, to aircraft design, we seem to be relying too much on computer models, and in every case, it's bitten us in the ass. Computer models are a necessary tool, but aren't the panacea you seem to think they are.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
A big, really nice plane. Will wonders never cease? Oh yeah, FP.
Cynical Slashdot nerd is not impressed, set faces on stun.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Boeing can demonstrate that the plane is safe, but they can't prove it.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Even just crossing the atlantic, it lost an "I"
Avaition Week? Why, that's my faovrite peroidical!
Boring, not at all. This is a revolutionary plane, Boeing are looking at 25% less running costs and 30% less fuel than the 767 it replaces - I would say rather an achievement, if a litttle later than advertised!
Less fuel == less pollution and greenhouse gases.
Are the airlines doing this to be nice and "Green"? Nope.Were they doing it because they were legislated to? Nope. And they're (engines makers, plane makers and airlines) always pushing for more fuel efficiency and noise reduction.
Burn less fuel saves money and it just so happens to reduce green house gases.
I think there's some sort of lessen here.
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
Composites are not perfect but look at the alternative.
Aluminum is also pretty scary stuff. There are major issues with corrosion. Aluminum has some very funky physical properties compared to other metals. It has zero stress endurance which means that parts WILL crack eventually if they are not replaced regularly.
I thought jet engines produced something more like a continuous deflagration rather than periodic explosions.
The A350 is still 2+ years from first flight. By that time, Boeing will have delivered a few dozen of the 787, presuming that nothing happens during flight testing and initial service to throw off the delivery schedule, and will have delivered even more by the time the first A350 has been delivered, as that plane will still have to go through its own ~9-month test plan. The A350 was largely a panic response to the 787, as evident from the dismissive attitude taken towards the 787 by Airbus early on, and then the rushed design paralleling the 787 (including the use of large fractions of composite materials) later on as orders stacked up in Boeing's corner while A380 orders languished. To this day, the A380 has barely more than 200 firm orders, whereas the 787 has well over 800. The A350 has 500 on firm order, but that may change as the 787 gets out the door.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Which they've fixed.
Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner on Monday successfully completed the wing test the jet failed last May, and now looks set to fly before Christmas, according to two sources familiar with the test outcome.
Engineers are still analyzing data from the repeat test and haven't yet given the official thumbs-up, but the composite fibers in the wing did not delaminate when it was bent to the same point as in the previous test, the sources said..
Again, it has to pass the design limit test before the FAA will let it fly, so since it just flown, they've proven it's safe.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Actually, I can't think of a single instance of a composite wing structure failing in flight for a commercial aircraft. Aluminum, however, has a fatigue life limit, and several planes have fallen to spar failures (Boeing 707) or cabin structure failures (De Havilland Comet).
Now, there is the instance of the composite vertical stabilizer separating from the aircraft on an American Airbus A300, but that was attributed to the forces applied to it by the co-pilot and the lack of correct software control.
Bill
It's my Sig and you can't have it. Mine! All Mine!
No way dude. These aircraft are so durable that you could hijack one and fly it right through a skyscraper!
Yeah, and I won't trust that you didn't rape a 12 year old until you prove to me you didn't do it.
THAT's the logic he is using.'
Fact of the matter is I don't believe you raped a 12 year old no matter what people are saying about you~
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Well the dreamliner is supposed to replace the 767 and compete against the A330
and the nook upwards.
It was sold to customers as being 20% more fuel efficient than a 767 and thus slightly
besting the basic A330 specs from around 2002.
But the current implementation is about 10% overweight ( seemingly for the forseeable future )
moving it into A330 ballpark figures ( Similar empty weight ). Improved engines with better SFC are
available for the A330 as well. One reason the A330 has sold quite well in the last 2-3 years
while dreamliner sales have tanked shortly after the initial rollout 2.5 years ago
( i.e. after it was obvious that the dreamliner was a potemkin liner )
Quite a lot of customers currently seem to stay the ride more for cashing in on penalties
than actually receiving any planes later on ( The current backlog will not be satisfied before
2020/2022)
The A350XWB on the other hand is not a direct competitor to the dreamliner.
It fits above the 787 and below/into the 777 space. Which is rather typical.
Neither Boeing nor Airbus stage new types spec by spec against a competitors
distinct type but try to hit the weak spots in between with the initialy
produced version.
Engineering standards of practice require, at the very least, some rough hand calculations in order to determine if the computer is sane. If your computer is trying to tell you that the capital of France is Jupiter, you want to know that it's wrong. (First-order approximations are often sufficient. Consult a local P.Eng for details.)
Ideally, you run the simulation on two different programs on two physically separate computers using different architectures. (i.e. Intel and AMD) Normally you don't do that because it's insanely time-consuming and costly. It's also the safest way to do computer modelling. (Whenever I wonder about costs, I think about answering the question of "why didn't you spend $X thousand on the simulation?" starting with, "Well, Your Honour, ...")
Nevertheless, there isn't enough processing power on the face of the earth to fully simulate the airflow over the wings of a 747. Assumptions and simplifications are made in order to get a "good enough" answer. (One of my friends crashed what was at the time the #80 supercomputer because he tried to get too fine an analysis.)
Before the plane gets FAA approval, they have to run a bunch of test flights, including several planes that get flown to destruction (and one of them goes through a "wing flex" test to see what it takes to make the wings fall off). Now, we know that Boeing wants to make these planes as cheaply as they can. It's a fact of business. cheaper plane = higher margin. They have 840 planes on order, of which the last 740 will cancel if they shave the margins closely enough to cause lift's magnitude to drop below gravity's magnitude.
Finally, if it's not a safe plane, pilots will refuse to fly it and then you'll be sitting there with a really fucking expensive tiki hut that looks like a plane.
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ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
I think you typed your response with half your fingers on the wrong keys.
Did they put a separate door for the pilots? If they would start making it physically impossible for the passengers to enter the cockpit giving each a seperate exterior door, we could get rid of a bunch of the useless security theater.
He's voicing an opinion.
To paraphrase Harlan Ellison, he is only entitled to his opinion if it is an informed opinion.
No sig for the moment.
I think you mean "leaves the ground". The FAA don't require any tests before planes leave the air, that happens naturally.
I work across the street from Paine Field, the airport it took off from, and I can tell you that it was pretty exciting to us. We have nothing at all to do with the industry, and we were all still keeping an eye out for the takeoff. Something of an oddity for guys who are used to hearing/seeing dozens of planes take off every day, including a couple of liftoffs of the DreamLifter every day. How often do you get to see history first hand?
Might as well close Slashdot.
And where would Airbus be without all the massive euro-subsidies?
Well, at least you agree it is a novel aircraft. Though perhaps not quite as much as you think; warplanes have been using composites for some time now, so there is good reason to believe it will work. There was a bit of scandal a few years ago when Dan Rather made some very shaky accusations about the Boeing design. Admittedly there is inherently some risk whenever you take a step forward, but that's how we progress. Personally I'll be excited the first time I get to travel on one.
Yet more cynical Slashdot nerd demands that even more cynical Slashdot nerd turn in his nerd card for not recognising a Simpsons quote that references Star Trek...
(It's Grade School Confidential, the one where Principal Skinner and Mrs Krabapple carry on a sordid affair in school. Bart finds out about it and exposes them in front of his classmates. "Set your faces to stun" is what he says just before flinging open the door that the lovers are hiding behind.)
Just another wannabe fantasy novelist...
Any barrel rolls?
I drank what? -- Socrates
the A380 was delivered 2 years ahead of the 787
Yeah. Airbus runs a flawless operation.
"The first A380 was delivered to Singapore Airlines in October — 18 months behind schedule after billions of dollars in cost overruns for planemaker Airbus."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23689448/
Just because a consensus group of scientists cannot simplify a conclusion into terms that you already understand is not a valid reason for you to reject their conclusion. Attacking their methodology as being politically motivated without some concrete statement or evidence, cherry picked e-mails are not evidence. Of course, attacking their methods with ignorant, irrelevant complaints is not valid. If you want to make informed criticism of the evidence they are using, then why aren't you in graduate school right now studying to become a materials engineer or a climatologist?
Impersonating Tycho from Penny Arcade since before there was a PA.
But I have no where else to go.
I drank what? -- Socrates
I was a crew chief on a KC-135a, back in the 80's. Ours was a pretty new plane, being put in to service in 64. Sitting on the ground, the left wing was visibly lower than the right and they still allowed it to fly. Had the most on time take offs for any of the tanker fleet at Fairchild AFB in '88. Kinda' miss the old beast. Is cool that they're still seeing service.
I drank what? -- Socrates
I thought jet engines produced something more like a continuous deflagration rather than periodic explosions.
Yep, that's right. The really amazing thing about jet engines is just the materials science we had to master before we could make turbines which don't disintegrate every time you turn them on. Try to picture 6 metal wheels splined and bolted to each other with hundreds of small metal vanes on the end of them ... spinning at about 12,000 revolutions per minute while being blasted by a continues blast-furnace of 1,000+ degrees Celsius. It makes me shiver every time I think about it.
We're talking about an airplane in which major sections are literally baked together in a kind of giant oven.
I'm pretty sure that Burt Rutan would use that same sentence as a compliment, not the "wooh, scary" crap you're trying to pull. Composites aren't something we came up with yesterday to test tomorrow; we've been baking parts together since the 50s. That part of the technology is mature. Engineering problems can come up any time novel structures are made, whether they're made from composites or metal alloys; that's why we have a test-and-review system. Aluminum has been great for us so far, but composites will continue to replace it, because our composites are already excellent design candidates (and in practice, not just on paper) and are getting better, while Aluminum technology hasn't really improved since the Eisenhower administration.
...aircraft design, we seem to be relying too much on computer models
HOLY CRAP ARE YOU KIDDING? You say it like you think computer models are some oracle we pray to without understanding. Like we built HAL-9000 and asked him, "So...whad'ya think about this new plane of ours? Oh, and we're gonna make it out of some material nobody ever saw before. Cool? OK, it's going into production tomorrow, kthxbai." Do you even fucking realize what a "computer model" is, or what engineers would do without "computer models?"
ANSWER: THEY WOULD DO THE EXACT SAME DESIGN MODELING AND ANALYSIS BY HAND, PROBABLY WITH LESS PRECISION/RESOLUTION, AND THEY WOULD TAKE THOUSANDS OF TIMES LONGER!
That's it! "Computer Models" are just a way to speed up calculations we fucking learn to do with pencils and paper when we're in engineering school!! How do you think people wrote those programs in the first place?!? And then when the calculations are done, you build and test! This is how engineers have been doing things since *math* was invented!!! So yes, they DO rely on computer models, because the alternative is to hire thousands of people to do tedious calculations, with a much higher error rate, and much longer time requirement.
I mean, really! In what way, exactly, would you have them rely *less* on "computer models?" Would you like them to do *fewer* analyses before testing? Would you like them to mock it up in a big block of clay, and then put it in the wind tunnel, and then call it good? Should they kill chickens and read the entrails? What kind of design models do you think they'd use if they weren't using software models? And what makes you think that they don't do both?
It's clear that you don't know crap about crap.
Repetition does not transform a lie into the truth. - FDR
Bankrupt just like Boeing without massive US government subsidies and handouts. You often see them referred to as "cost plus contracts".
Wow, that completely describes my own experience of flying to Japan with my college class. I had always wanted to fly in a 747 because they were so huge. On the flight to Osaka from Chicago we were on a 777, and I was slightly bummed. Imagine how bummed I was when we took a 747 back.
Being able to track your progress across the Pacific whenever you please definitely has its advantages.
I'd rather let a thousand guilty men go free than chase after them.
That's nothing. I'm amazed that we can make these monkeys wait in long lines, take their shoes off and subject themselves to numerous other forms of abuse for the chance to do so.
I'd have expected the feces-flinging to have started long before we reached this point.
Have gnu, will travel.
The A380 is not a competitor or substitute for the 787. The A380 is Airbus's bold bet on hub-and-spoke flight operations, and most closely competes with the Boeing 747 series. The 787 is designed for a smaller number of passengers than the A380 while having long range options, making longer point-to-point routes possible. Airbus's answer to the 787 is the A350, which has been redesigned several times. The A350 has 505 "firm" orders, while the 787 has 840 "firm" orders.
Fowl weather terminated the flight plan early.
Ah, that explains why they landed in Lake Washington.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The 787 program was started 2-3 years after the A380, and a significantly more difficult engineering task than the 380. Airbus had the same kinds of problems Boeing did in their supply chain. Airbus had to cancel their freighter version. Both companies have massive government subsidies that the other side's government proclaim are illegal.
Boeing was obsessed with the Sonic Cruiser before the 787, which is why they ended up behind the game compared to Airbus.
Personally, my favorite plane to fly will always be the upper deck of a 747, as it creates an intimate space where you forget about all the other people on the plane. The 380 is more like to 777's stacked on top of each other. It might make sense in some markets but it is hard to believe that it will be the long-term solution.
Time will tell...
And where would Airbus be without all the massive euro-subsidies?
Same place as Boeing:
Boeing could jeopardize the launch funding of the new 7E7 aircraft should it press for an investigation of government subsidies received by rival Airbus because Boeing itself has received government subsides that violate world-trade agreements, according to David Pritchard, a research associate at the Canada-United States Trade Center in the UB Department of Geography.
http://www.buffalo.edu/ubreporter/archives/vol35/vol35n40/articles/Boeing.html
No one's hands are completely clean:
http://www.google.com/search?q=boeing+subsidies
http://www.google.com/search?q=airbus+subsidies
http://www.google.com/search?q=embraer+subsidies
http://www.google.com/search?q=bombardier+subsidies
Laminar flow modeling is extremely different than turbulent, possibly weakly compressible flow. Just so you know. I'm not saying it can't be done, but your comparison is weak.
Actually, there is a computer involved that supplies the force feedback to the rudder pedals through a system called the "Rudder Travel Limiter System." In the condition of flight that the AA A300 was in, it did not provide sufficient feedback to the co-pilot as to what his actions were. It also did not prevent catastrauphic damage from occuring.
The software was incorrect because it allowed the co-pilots inputs to physically break the aircraft. Normal certification guidelines call for the ability of a pilot to be able to have full control deflections without damaging the aircraft. The maximum speed at which that can occur is called VA or Maneuvering Speed. The AA A300 was flying well below VA at the time of the accident.
Bill
It's my Sig and you can't have it. Mine! All Mine!
The really amazing thing about jet engines [...]
I was reading some Wiki articles on Boeing's jets and saw that the Boeing 777 uses the General Electric GE90 turbofan engine. These machines are sheer marvels of technology and engineering. In addition to being the largest, the most powerful, and the longest ranged jet engine in the world, here are two facts I found particularly amazing:
And there are two of these engines on every 777. Just... wow.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
/)
Many of the posts seem to be missing a key feature of this airplane: cabin comfort. To quote from Wikipedia,
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
Not something that was designed 30+ years ago.
Actually, IIRC that pilot was not trained by American Airlines to wag the rudder like a jackass. That was his own dumb idea and he'd been warned about it in the past.
You should look up some video clips of the tests that these engines go through before they're approved for use. For example, in this clip you can watch the engine being put through various non-destructive tests, such as ingesting 4.5 TONS of water in one minute.
They are truly humbling machines. The most interesting videos, though, are of the destructive tests, and of actual failures.
Airbus can bet whatever they want, because they won't have to deal with bankruptcy or even losses. The governments of Europe finance them.
Oh, please, let's not pretend the US government does not subsidize Boeing through contracts that only Boeing is allowed to bid for.
"You can't allow somebody to commit the crime before you detain them." [Condoleezza Rice]
If NASA flew 787's instead of the Challenger and the Columbia, we'd be on Mars by now.
If the Russian Navy operated a 787 instead of the Kursk, their sailors wouldn't be fish food.
If your mom used a 787 instead of a dildo, she'd have no more need for black men.
One little nitpick with your comment (assuming that the gist of it was that composite a/c aren't more dangerous than Al a/c): A pinhole, ok 'small hole', will not kill people. I've worked on aircraft of all sizes and shapes and none of them were air-tight. The cabin air system is perfectly capable of maintaining pressure despite pinholes or small leaks in the airframe. The vinyl decals applied to aircraft are even designed with this in mind- decals placed over pressurized areas are perforated to allow leaking air to escape.
Basically, unless someone in the cabin can feel the 300+ KTAS wind coming through a hole, you'll be fine.
Additionally, the pilots (especially) and the passengers (to a more limited extent) are provided with oxygen in the event of cabin depressurization. You won't die at 30k feet, you'll just wake up at 15k feet before the emergency landing that your woefully underpaid pilots managed to coordinate in the face of anoxia, fear, and task saturation.
-b
No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.
According to that same article, the 787 is likely to be ordered by most airlines in a "high density" configuration of 3 X 3 X 3 seats in economy class. Seats in this configuration are actually smaller than those on the 737, which just has to be the most uncomfortable plane on the planet the way most airlines have them set up. Airlines could order it with the more traditional 2 seats along the windows, but I'm sure their accountants won't let them. So I rather think I'll be giving riding in this thing a miss. I don't give a damn about humidity when I can't move my legs and I'm sandwiched between two other people.
Airbus can bet whatever they want, because they won't have to deal with bankruptcy or even losses. The governments of Europe finance them.
Oh, please, let's not pretend the US government does not subsidize Boeing through contracts that only Boeing is allowed to bid for.
There is also General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman. All can and do bid on military contracts, both in and out of military aircraft. They, and Boeing, make the Tier 1 contractors that pretty much everyone else has to go through when doing a bid, even if it's getting one of them to simply be a backer. There are very few contracts that are not allowed to be bid by more than one company - and those are usually illegal, and will almost always be contested by at least on of the other contractors. Usually a single bidder means something is wrong with the RFP, or the other players just don't care (which is rare).
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
I know you're joking, but for aerospace geeks it's a *great* news source. It's accurate, in depth, and orders of magnitude better than 'Popular Mechanics' or even BBC. Popular Mechanics isn't hard to beat, but BBC just isn't specialized for this stuff. It's put out by AIAA which is an Aerospace Engineering trade organization. For more depth, you'd need to interview the actual engineers, or read the scientific paper. -Yet another space geek.
Actually, IIRC that pilot was not trained by American Airlines to wag the rudder like a jackass. That was his own dumb idea and he'd been warned about it in the past.
Air crash investigations did an episode on this crash, and they were quite clear in saying that the pilot was doing exactly what AA had trained him to do, and airbus were horrified when they found out about it.
Wikipedia says pretty much the same thing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_587#NTSB_findings
There's nothing like a good pun. And that, sir, is nothing like one.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
As a Long Beach, CA resident I can tell you to go there just to see the Spruce Goose. Bastards took it from the Queen Mary down here, but it deserves to be there.
The Spruce Goose was no assembly line product, I remember standing in awe of the thing when they had it back in Long Beach and it was so beautifully lit up. Wish I could have been there to see its maiden flight though, as short as Hughes made it.
This is McCroskey in the tower, the fowl are going to kill us all! ARGHHHH!! [jumps out window]
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.