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Boeing To Deliver First 787 Today
mosb1000 writes "The era of the plastic jumbo jet has finally arrived. Boeing is delivering their first Dreamliner to All Nippon Airways today. From the article: '"Comfort and cost are concerns of the business traveller and the 787 will deliver extreme advancements in fuel efficiency and many traveller features that will improve the journey," said Michael Qualantone, senior vice president & general manager, American Express Global Business Travel. Indeed, this twin-engine, bendy winged, widebody craft has raised the bar for fuel efficiency. Some 50 percent by weight of the 787 airframe is lightweight carbon-fibre composites that could, Boeing says, help reduce fuel costs by 20 percent.' I can't wait for my first chance to fly in one."
This is like when a car manufacturer makes a new car!
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
You might be waiting a while. The B777 was in service for 14 years before one was crashed.
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telecommunications and the internet, are these things really all that relevant to international business? I cant imagine they serve any other purpose than airborne cattle-cars for the unwashed in economy class, and exotic chariots of booze and decadence for wealthy elite.
Funny that humans seem to really want to interact with other humans rather than some simulacrum. If you think this desire for person to person contact just results in an 'unwashed economy class' or 'booze and decadence' I think you need to get out more often.
Basements aren't a very healthy place to spend your entire life.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
What does that mean? Do the wings bend (in the vertical axis I suppose) more than normal? Or are they curved along the front or trailing edge?
I once read somewhere that commercial jetliner wings are unbelievably strong, they can be bent almost till they touch at the top before breaking. I recall that they are tested this way, and that on occasion they are tested until failure (in a heavily shielded test facility I hope!).
Oh well, I'm hoping that the next generation of aircraft have transparent hulls like some forecasts I think some european group made. Then airlines could market their flights as entertainment like theme park rides.
A380 has 5000-ft cabin pressure, 787 has 6000-ft cabin pressure - so the A380 is better in this regard.
Windows on the 787 are 196.88 inches square vs "bigger" for the Airbus (I can't find the number). I doubt it makes much difference.
But why compare these two planes? They are for very different markets...
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The main delay has been quite a few things - union issues (several strikes throughout the 787s development life), manufacturing issues (subs not being able to do work right, subs not being able to do work on time, subs getting work wrong), design issues (strength issues with side-of-body wing attachment points, cracking in several spars) and performance issues (engines not yet up to contractual specific fuel consumption rates - also affecting the 747-8 as that uses the same GeNX engines).
Boeings issue was that they wanted to not only produce a revolutionary aircraft, but they wanted to do it on a tight budget and completely change the way they both designed and built the aircraft. Not a good idea to switch all three critical parts of the journey on a brand new product...
So now, they paid the price - they had to write off the first three aircraft built (OEMs never want to do that, its a several hundred million dollar decision), the next 25 or so are overweight and have engines that don't meet fuel burn (but the aircraft itself has better-than-expected aerodynamics, offsetting some of the performnace issues), and while the engine manufacturers are putting together PIPs (performance improvement packages) for the engines, those early build aircraft won't get to see them for 5 or more years.
There are some things that can't be done via telepresence. Like it or not, business almost always boils down to personal connections. This is especially true outside of North America. In Europe and Asia, it can take years to build a relationship between a vendor and customer to the point where the customer will be willing to spend significant amounts of money. However, once you've built that relationship, you'll need to do a lot to lose that business.
By the same token, telepresence doesn't let you turn a wrench or otherwise get your hands onto equipment. Not everything has a command line or a web interface, and even those that do occasionally fail.
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The dreamliner has logged more flight testing and more flight-time hours testing than any other aircraft. ever. If Boeing had the remotest thought that it would crash, they'd delay and delivery a completed product, as such they are today. http://787flighttest.com/
Guess what airlines, 32.5 does not fit into 31 especially on 12hr sectors. Now where's my lawyer?
Telling you to buy a seat you fit in, I hope. I'm taller than you and I don't go about suing car companies who make many nice cheap cars that I can't fit in - I buy a car that fits me.
Tall men have plenty of advantages in life - we have to let the little guys win once in a while.
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Both the 787 and A380 pressurize to 6,000 feet instead of the usual 8,000 feet. But the cool part is that the 787 doesn't bleed hot air from the engines as is normal. It uses a variable speed electrically driven compressor with a humidifier, heater and filters.
The 787 also has bigger windows.
The A380 really didn't introduce much new in technology, mainly built what we had bigger. The 787 is pretty radical.
Wonder if the Chinese subcontractors cut some corners ro quality to make a little more money? or the other foreign subcontractors who make up 30% of the craft?
30% foreign subcontracting? Japan alone accounts for 35%,although I'm not sure if that is measured by value, weight, or what. When you fly in a 787, you will be flying on Japanese wings (made by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, no less - no need for self-sealing fuel tanks on a civilian airliner, thank goodness).
Boeing seems to be working hard at becoming an aircraft assembler more than an aircraft builder. Probably necessary in order to compete in the future with other manufacturers, really , but a hard pill to swallow for Boeing aficionados (and unions). A large part of the delays to the 787 project have had as much to do with completely rearranging their business model as with difficulties in design.
Both the 787 and A380 pressurize to 6,000 feet instead of the usual 8,000 feet.
I heard this on the news today and paused to consider how, since my house is at 7,500 feet, the new pressurization is likely to leave me feeling *more* invigorated when I'm in the air than I'll feel when I land.
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About the only important place the A380 uses composites is in the wing box, and it's about 20% by weight overall. The rest is just bits here and there to save weight, a chunk of fuselage here, a chunk of wing there.
The 787 uses composites almost everywhere, and depends on them for complete structural integrity. , Composites in a 787 are 50% by weight, 80% by volume, so you look at a 787, only about 1/5 of what you see is metal.
The situation is understandable, since when Boeing started talking about making a mostly composite plane, Airbus was pretty much dismissing the idea. At the time they'd only gone as far with serious use as the vertical stabiliser and rudder and the A330.
This was a huge risk by Boeing that delayed the project several times. I'm glad to see it finally coming through.
Even then, there wasn't a single fatality. The only fatality was at Denver International Airport, where someone fueling the aircraft burned to death when the fuel caught fire. He wasn't even in the plane.
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A380 has 5000-ft cabin pressure, 787 has 6000-ft cabin pressure
Well, duh, that's because the A380 uses PAL and the 787 uses NTSC.
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Boeings issue was that they wanted to not only produce a revolutionary aircraft, but they wanted to do it on a tight budget and completely change the way they both designed and built the aircraft. Not a good idea to switch all three critical parts of the journey on a brand new product...
There's actually historical precedence for why completely changing the build process at the same time you're coming up with a new design is a Bad Idea: during WWII the Germans designed a revolutionary new Type XXI U-boat, which was the first submarine to be faster underwater than on the surface, featured hydraulic reloading of torpedoes instead of having the crew manhandle them, etc.
Unfortunately for them (but fortunately for /us/) they had the bright idea to manufacture the new U-boats in sections and then assemble them at the dockyards, as opposed to the previous practice of building the whole thing at the factory then shipping it to the naval base. They couldn't get the tolerances tight enough so none of the Type XXI U-boats were able to sortie before the war ended, because they couldn't assemble the sections together properly.
If they'd stuck with the original build process for the XXI and perfected the new process on a new separate line of older-model U-boats, things would have been a bit more difficult for us during the late Battle of the Atlantic.
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