Slashdot Mirror
Boeing 787 Makes US Debut
thomas.kane writes "After years of delays, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner is set to take off from Bush Intercontinental Airport this morning bound for O'Hare. Designed to make the flying experience 'revolutionary,' it is constructed from composite materials, has larger windows than previous jetliners, and high efficiency engines. United Airlines became the first U.S. carrier to take delivery; they've ordered 50, but due to processing delays, they only have 2 right now. Start looking for more to take to the skies early next year."
Would love to see this in person!
Hasn't it been doing non-stop Boston Tokyo flights since April? Or did something stop that from happening.
In Soviet Russia, Boeing 787 Makes YOU Debut !
Flourescent (adj): smelling like ground wheat.
I was worried at first, until I saw that the airport was named after the at least somewhat sane one.
But do the windows open?
A man spends the first half of his life accumulating stuff, the second trying to get rid of it all.
Getting a bit of deja vu here. Looks like they'll be counting it as a first everytime this plane takes off. First for an American carrier, first time at night, first time with a special guest aboard, first flight with ground fog, etc.
Watching the "Passenger Experience" video it was almost obnoxious how much attention they kept giving the ceiling lighting, but looking at the different settings for the dynamic LED lighting it is actually pretty cool. I like that it not only changes the brightness but also the color of the cabin for things like meals and pre-landing.
Did they upgrade the staff with all new attitudes and customer service skills? Otherwise I'd rather be on another carrier's older plane.
You mean they have spacious seats, and the back of the plane is as quite as the front, and no more TSA?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I'd love to find out more, but everything about that fucking Boeing site requires Flash.
I always try to get a window as .. gasp .. I like looking out the window! But in a lot of US long haul domestic flights they "encourage" you to shut the window shades in the middle of the day. Generally you can "comply" with this by pulling the shade down 3/4 of the way and still give you some window to look out of. However with the Dreamliner's electronic dimming of the whole window you won't have a chance of balancing your desires with the cabin crew's requests.
And in a bit of conspiracy thinking, I wonder if the cabin crew has a master switch to force the windows to darken when they want - Hello Zaphod's Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses!
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
These decadent capitalists are always trying to make more efficient things so they can make more money...!
Wake up people!
I live in Seattle. Everytime I hear someone complain that nothing is made in the USA I think - are you kidding, look up in the sky those planes were made right here.
From TFA:
Really? Those are the "passenger comforts" so significant they get a mention?
How about they just make the seats (ALL the seats) wide enough for normal Americans to sit comfortably without feeling they are intruding on the personal space of others?
I'd happily fly in slow, noisy, propeller-driven planes fired by coal if they'd just give us enough room to be comfortable on a long flight.
A little googling leads me to believe the seat width on the economy class 787 by United will be smaller than ever. They want to go with a 3-3-3 configuration which drops the width under 17 inches. Some carriers (e.g.: ANA) are going 2-4-2, but apparently not United.
It turns out there was some poor guy at United Airlines refreshing this web page for months:
What's worse, when the plane finally arrived, it was packed in a giant welded plastic clamshell. It took two weeks for a crew at the airline to extract the aircraft without damaging it.
SWA may do fine as a business, but it doesn't do any better than other US carriers in terms of product or value for the customer.
If you compare US airlines to foreign airlines, foreign airlines (excluding Europe) have far better soft product (food, service, etc) because they are not saddled with the costs of an American labor force.
paintball
,.. if flying hadn't become such a nightmare. I remember how excited I was the first time I flew as a kid. The last time I flew, the seat put my arse to sleep, and the guy in the next seat kept elbowing me as he worked on a PP presentation. The restroom was this tiny compartment I couldn't even stand up straight in.
I avoid flying at all costs. I'll probably never board a 787.
I don't know exactly what Boeing use but I would assume it was carbon/aramid composite because aramids are better at energy absorbtion and do not have such a high Young's modulus, which is why modern boat hulls are made of aramid/epoxy composite with carbon fiber reinforcement to reduce deformation in areas that need stiffness.
As an example of the fatigue life of these composites, consider Ben Ainslie's boat in the last three Olympics. It has been the same one...before carbon/aramid, boats used for one Olympics had to be replaced because of the damage caused by the stresses. Yet the carbon/aramid hull is lighter.
Guess what I'm making my new boat hull out of?
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Those cracks you're describing are metal fatigue. They occur during normal aircraft operations(high-cycle fatigue), as well as when a structure is stressed beyond what the material is able to tolerate (low cycle fatigue). As you've noted, carbon fiber composites aren't susceptible to it. This is a huge benefit! It means that any structural damage will be visible. It means that structural damage is less likely to occur and the overall structure won't become weaker over time. It doesn't mean that the whole plane will explode whenever a part of it is damaged. You still need to apply more stress to the plane's structure than it was designed to handle in order to break it. Don't imagine that aluminum is not susceptible to this kind of failure simply because it will undergo plastic deformation before it breaks. If you put too much stress on an aluminum wing, it will break all the same.
I find this odd because last month there was one sitting at the terminal in Phoenix as we pulled in.
Our pilot was on the intercom telling everyone to look out the window at it.
Maybe it was on a test run and not a regular commercial flight.
If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur. --Red Adair
..they can fire the Clown-Officers who run the F35 program and then radically redesign the physical layout of the "F35", then this hairball might one day perform a wire-arrested landing. So far, they have figured that the Clown-officers cannot read the regulations some *real* officers have written some time ago. And that is why they can't do arrested landing. America is fucked-up from NY down to Virginia.
..your software is perfect. You employer was the single one who made 100% perfect simulation software.
Bollocks. Only real-world stress testing will reveal the real issues. Maybe some nasty bacteria will finish it off. Maybe we will discover Boeing did way to few testing hours and there will be some spectacular crashes. Money problems (and they did have them when the program is more than two years late) lead to all sorts of unscientific and engineering-wise bullcrappery. We have to wait and see.
But - that is the normal way of human progress. It is paid by some random users being killed.
I agree with your general line of argument. But if (yes, IF) Boeing management has listened to their materials engineers and scientists, they have taken proper precautions to handle the issue you described (which I find accurate from my brief knowledge of what we Spannungs-Dehnungs-Diagramm in German).
IF they have done it properly, they have diagnostic tools and procedures in place to test every relevant non-metallic part of the 787 for fatigue. Of course, these techniques will be different from those used to test metals. But I am quite sure you can do a lot of things with either X-Rays or particle beams to "look into" composite parts and to assess their ability to successfully accept the forces they were designed for.
IF they have done it properly, they will have subjected a test frame to vibrations of all conceivable frequencies and loads; they will have subjected it to all conceivable static load tests. They will have done this for realistic time frames.
Now, neither I nor you now whether these IFs are true. Wait and see.
As a real-world anecdote, the inventor of THE motor-car recently had to redo the injection system of its most advanced engines to the cost of 500 to 1000 million Euros. Apparently, "proper testing was too expensive and/or too timeconsuming". Rolls-Royce tried to crash an A380 due to their negligent engine testing efforts.
You see, the Wonders Of MBA !
..just make sure the max load will be within elastic limits. And better make sure you don't have oscillations, as there will be very little energy be absorbed by elastic bending. Yes - it's a risky new technology and we will have to see how it works out.
Boeing cannot afford to lose money on this product line on the long run. They fully expect it to be a profit-center in a few years, as others are close to EOL (eg. 747). If they can ramp up production it will most probably be a very profitable product. They have a huge order list. They were just highly optimistic about all the new technology and the new supplier business model. Or - they lied to themselves to get project approval. That's the honest desc.
Then they had the balls to "pull this through", which deserves quite a bit of credit. Who knows how much Pentagon money they used for the 787.
In less than four years, Airbus will have something in the air that is better than the 787, so your line of argument does not hold water. In many ways, Airbus products were more advanced (fly by wire etc) for a long time and Boeing has just a temporary edge. Then there's also Embraer and Bombardier who only wait to exploit mistakes by Boeing and Airbus. If Embraer teams up with the Chinese, it will be Tough Times Ahead for both Airbus and Boeing, actually.
Cram the fish into the tube and then sedate them with Ethanol. Well, maybe the best way to do this.
funny, I go with the lowest bidder for airlines based in other parts of the world and the food, beer & wine, entertainment and courteous service are included. the US airlines *could* do it if money-grubbing scum weren't allowed to get away with excessivly lining their own pockets
Right now, the aviation industry has a net loss for the lifetime of the industry. The stockholders certainly don't see any money, and they keep getting totally wiped out. Compare executive compensation of airline companies and other companies. Airline execs make far less on average than execs at companies of similar sizes. Who is left? Who are the "money-grubbing scum"?
..so your arguments aren't shedding light on the whole issue. Overly aggressive unions are a big problem and you can see it on a larger scale in Spain, Greece, Portugal and Italy. They have legislated "100% job security" under the pressure of labour and the effect is that employers simply don't hire and the whole economy is in the crapper. Large parts of Italy have only companies of less than 10 workers because the "total job security" principle only applies to companies of more than 10 workers. Imagine what kind of insane economic incentives these are....
They can only "afford" this, because Germans have scrapped the most idiotic "worker protection" laws and work themselves into burn-out, so that German economy is very strong. All the money gained in Germany is then channeled into the countries mentioned above.
The whole "Pax Americana" world from Tokio to Warsaw suffers under the self-dilusion that more and more welfare handouts and excessive entitlements can somehow be financed and of course be expanded. Japan is extremely indebted, America on the best course into the same situation and large parts of Europe (including the UK) more or less under water, financially.
All I want is some godammed leg and elbow room.
No you don't. If that's all you wanted, you'd fly first class or business class and get it. What you want is more leg and elbow room and the same amount of money left in your wallet after you buy the ticket.
i agree with you. send me an email, i'd like to share notes. There does seem to be a war on the white race and it isn nothing less than genocide. eflaras at gmail.com
There does seem to be some, conspiracy to destroy the white race. The conspiracy clearly seems to center on whatever has taken control of the Democratic party. The Democratic Party has been most involved with trying to increase the immigration invasion of trhe US. Mexicans see the United States as rightfully their country and fantasize about stealing the US from White people and turning it into part of Mexico. Basically they hate white people and feel that the country is rightfully theres. They know that as Democrats are in power that no one will stop them from illegally crossing the US border and that enforcement of US immigration laws is basically totally inadequate to be non existant. At first it seems confusing that Mexicans would vote for the Democratic party, or that the Democratic party would be interested in Mexicans. Mexicans are not dumb enough to abort their children and do not really fit the democrats advertized stereotypes, being very religious. At first it does not make sense. When we start to realize that Democrats, many of them self hating whites, and mexicans are allies in a war on White christian america. Mexicans support the Democratic party knowing that it is mostly white babies that are aborted and furthermore democrats whole purpose is to destroy the white race, so they encoruage mexicans to flood into the countryh while trying to make sure thqat no one stops baby killing murderers from killing more white babies. Democrats support the destructive and murderous pro-abortion position , which is causing catastrophic shrinkage of white populations, at the same time they are supporting a massive immigration flood of the United States iof brown skinned, low intelligence third world races of all kinds, who reproduce like cockroaches. It seems odd that the Democrats idolize the dark skinned races such as Latinos, blacks, Indians , muslims among others, when these people have a history of running their own countries into a ground, most nearly all of them are third world cesspits , are known to be the most prone to violence, religious extremism and human rigths abuses. Consider religious extremism in Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia and the the total incompetence of the populations of most black majority countries and those countries total economic failure. Its long been a well known fact that IQ is heriditary and different races have very different IQ levels. Europeans have an average IQ 20% higher than blacks or mexicans and 10% higher than the global average. The success of the united States is primarily due to the high intelligence of its white majority population. The success and nature of a country is inseperable from its racial compsition. The larger the black or latino percentage of a countries population the less successful that those countries are, and this isn due to the fact that most of these races are less evolved and do not reach the intelligence thresholds necessary for an advanced technical civilisation.
The result of this is that the US is going to end up looking like a third world country if we allow this war on the white majority in the US to continue. The US has been very successful as a white majority country with a list of technological acheivements too long to list including the transistor and man on the moon. We would be insane to allow the country to be taken over by clearly inferior low intelligence and more primitive races such as mexicans, who have only proven that they are totally incompetent, who have ruined their own country adn now are flooding into this country to ruin it as well.
i would recommend reading about JP rushtons work. he has pretty much proven that racial IQ differences are mostly heriditary and racially aligned. he has done peer reviewed studies of the issue. of course there has been desperate efforts of the Political correctenss/egalitarianism crowd to attempt to slander try to desperately try to discredit him.the goal of PC people anyway is not science, it is to try to protect their little fake PC reality as desperately as they can, ignorant science wherever necessary. for them political correctness comes before science. However, Rushton has done a good job of disproving such criticism. there is a lot of data on his side that intelligence is heriditary and that this is a pretty well established scientific fact that IQ is racially alIgned and mostly heriditary. Other books i recomemnd are the Bell curve and IQ and the wealth of nations.
Airlines are providing those options, it's called Economy Comfort or something. Guess what? It comes with a higher ticket price. The carbon fiber allows the cabin air pressure to be higher and allows the cabin humidity to be higher. This is a huge improvement. No more ears popping, or babies crying, or dehydration headaches. Carbon fiber also means higher fuel efficiency and lower prices.
The airlines can put in bigger seats, but they will charge you a heavy premium for them. Don't blame Boeing.
I wonder if the airlines will use the higher cabin pressure. The extra weight of the air will decrease fuel efficiency and increase operating costs (both direct and in aircraft pressurization lifetime).
You can easily get slightly more leg room, (but not more width), for modestly more money, and I do that. On United at least, if you want significantly more space, or better food, or electrical outlets, or in-seat video the price is very much higher (~10X) - much more than the extra aircraft interior space taken up by the large seat.
Airlines are of course free to sell their services at whatever price they want, but I'm not going to get excited (give them flying preference) for minor issues like exactly which model aircraft they are flying. From inside a 767, 777, 747, A330, A340 all are so similar that if you don't count seats its hard to tell which you are on.
As a frequent passenger, the 787 looks like a slightly more efficient 767 to me.
And when you fly for yourself you can choose that. Unfortunately many of us have to fly for work... and they just like to screw us over. Boses don't mind if you are in pain for hours.
This will be United Flight# 1553, departing this morning at 7:30 AM CST from Houston and heading to Chicago O'Hare for a 9:40 AM CST arrival.
You can track the progress of the flight live at FlightAware:
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/UAL1553
And if you really want to geek out, you can listen to the ATC at Houston or Chicago at LiveATC.net:
http://www.liveatc.net/search/?icao=kiah
http://www.liveatc.net/search/?icao=kord
Citation needed..
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
No you don't. If that's all you wanted, you'd fly first class or business class and get it.
Business class is VASTLY more expensive than standard class. I, for instance simply can't afford it.
Some airlines like BA offer economy+ or whatever they call it where you pay a bit more and get a bit more room. Guess what? I can afford that and I do pay!
Saying "oh clearly you don't want a bit more room because you're not prepared to pay 5x for a lot more room and different food" is reall, really silly.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Then complain about United not Boeing. The planes get ordered with a specified number of seats and my experience with various airliners is that for completely identical planes (I fly in Boeing 777-300ERs quite often) there is a wide variety of different seat layouts.
Will there be any overseas flights to Europe? Thanks
You have me there. I want more room and no more cost. I want to be treated like a human being.
Of course, the free market solves all problems in the most efficient manner, so only people with adequate net worth are worthy of being treated like humans. The rest of us are no different than cattle and deserve no better treatment.
Perhaps I should pull myself up by my bootstraps, start a small business (maybe I can borrow some money from my parents!), and who knows, with years of hard work and the success guaranteed by the free market, some day I too, may be able to fly first class, or, if I dream just a little bigger, maybe even travel between my homes and off-shore banks in my private jet. The only thing stopping me from achieving that dream is my laziness and sense of entitlement.
Gosh darn it, you've shown me the error of my thinking- I'm going to turn over a new leaf. Tomorrow I'll vote republican as the first step in my self-remake and I'll be on my way to untold wealth! I hope everyone will join me!
I'd gladly pay 10 bucks extra for extra leg and elbow room.
Heck, I'd even go up to $10.50.
What about those of us who want to take a train, but can't because our government helped the auto and air companies take a shit on rail in order to sell cars and oil? I mean, we can take a train, but it's a pile of crap. We put our time, effort and money into supporting the least potentially economical options.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I'd be happy to pay more for extra arm and leg room, but not the billionaire tax for first-class fare. Business-class is often not available.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
http://www.newairplane.com/welcome/
I'm looking forward to sitting next to the guy in Boeing's "Passenger Experience" video/stills wearing headphones with his drumsticks out. What, is he gonna be drumming on the armrests or something? Even if he's only playing "air drums" and not making noise, how totally obnoxious is that visual gonna be?
This old man
he played 4
he played knick-knack on the emergency exit door.
before the rest of the passengers beat the everloving crap out of him for bringing out drumsticks on a freaking plane ferchrissakes! Jeez!
Hollywood, Television, has become the dream machine. We need to take that back; each of us is a Dream Machine
So you wish to return to the times when the government gave thousands of square miles of land to railroad companies?
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Are you sure that trains are more viable? The US is pretty big. We have a lot of rail, but we use it for freight. We could use it for transport too, but we'd probably have to lay more (and better) track. That means buying land and building track. What land, and track where? Should we build up the route from Detroit to Pittsburgh? Would have made sense 40 years ago, but probably not today. California wants to build a route between SF (and Silicon Valley) and LA. That seems to make sense now, but will it make sense in 20 years if/when the rail is actually complete?
By comparison, say you wanted to increase the routes between SF and LA by air. You'd just fly more planes. Maybe SFO or LAX would need to build an extension to a terminal or add a parking garage, but the cost of that should be nothing compared with 500 miles of high-speed rail, right? You probably don't even need new runways - just run the route with larger planes.
Trains are awesome and they're obviously a major part of transit in high-density areas like NYC and most of Europe. Air travel has advantages though. You don't need to build jetways in the sky to add capacity. If you want to get from NYC to London or LA to Sydney, trains just don't seem like a good decision. Planes fly around mountains, but rail has to go (expensively) through them. Etc, etc.
Air in the 787 weighs about 340 pounds at sea level, about 255 pounds with typical pressurization at altitude. That 85 pound difference isn't a big deal.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Can they load my guitar on it without breaking it? That's what I really want to know...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Breaks_Guitars
Nope, there's already railways, sometimes even with rail, and established right-of-ways. But I do take your point that there's room for abuse anywhere if we permit abuse.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
No you don't. If that's all you wanted, you'd fly first class or business class and get it. What you want is more leg and elbow room and the same amount of money left in your wallet after you buy the ticket.
No. What I want is more leg and elbow room while paying a reasonably higher amount. Paying 8 to 10 times the original ticket cost for 2 more inches in all directions is patently absurd. The pricing model is all fucked up.
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen