Boeing 787 Dreamliner Delayed Again 214
An anonymous reader writes "It's not just that the Boeing 787 Dreamliner may be unsafe or vulnerable to hacker attacks. At this point, it seems everyone would be happy for it to arrive in any state. The 787's carbon-fiber construction and next-generation technology have pushed back their delivery schedule once again, this time requiring a redesign of the plane's wingbox. Airlines will have to wait 18 more months to get it delivered, which is an extremely serious blow to the credibility of the company and their financial standing, as they would have to pay penalties to the buyers of more than 850 of these planes. And we thought Airbus had problems." Good thing Boeing can still count on its patent portfolio.
Re:Composites are hard (Score:3, Interesting)
Can someone enlightened with engineering.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, somewhat OT, but it's been bugging me for a while.
Re:Can someone enlightened with engineering.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Patent will sink the world? (Score:1, Interesting)
You seem to forget that not all patents are of the "one-click" variety. Many of them take a lot of creativity and knowledge to pull together.
It isn't surprising that a big company with huge resources and a huge R&D and engineering team (perhaps the largest in the world) considers its intellectual property a valuable asset.
Re:Can someone enlightened with engineering.... (Score:4, Interesting)
In terms of passengers and cargo capacity Concorde was not a large aircraft.
The funny thing is (Score:4, Interesting)
OTH, Airbus pushes that crap. They (and jeppesen) went to MS to try and get MS to DO-178B ANY version of Windows. After reading it, Gates actually responded that it would be another 1-2 decades before they could even THINK about doing something like that.
Re:Comparison Boeing is getting lazy (Score:3, Interesting)
I think Boeing / MD should be broken up now under anyi trust laws.
While Boeing was scheming how far they could gouge the tax payers with the new Military tanker, they just forgot they have work to do on the 'VaporLiner'.
This is the perfect example of a good company caught up in greed instead of what they started as, building airplanes.
Re:Can someone enlightened with engineering.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It matters. But really it doesn't. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:WHY no high speed rail. (Score:3, Interesting)
Time-wise, air travel doesn't really save anything. With all the security bullshit and stops, flying from, say, San Diego to St. Louis takes 8-10 hours. That's about 1800 miles. A TGV-type train traveling at 200 mph would cover the same distance in about the same time. Granted, coast-to-coast travel by train wouldn't be that much fun, but it would certainly work out much better for shorter trips. Considering how much baggage you could bring on a train, it would be worth it for a lot of trips.
Re:Can someone enlightened with engineering.... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:It matters. But really it doesn't. (Score:5, Interesting)
The main rationale for using a hub is fuel efficiency by reducing the overall number of flights. A fuel efficient small plane can tip the balance the other way and make point to point routes economically viable again, as well as allowing less-used airports become hubs (since the number of passengers per plane is lower, you don't need to as many passengers to justify a hub flight). Based on the number of pre-orders the 787 has gotten, it would appear that the airlines all did the math and it came out in favor of the point to point routes.
Re:Comparison Boeing is getting lazy (Score:5, Interesting)
Douglass Aircraft was, for all practical purposes, dead. McD-D had no real interest in building commercial aircraft and pushed much of the process out of the company.
After McD-D lost that big fighter contract, they were dead in the water. Boeing probably could have waited for the bankruptcy sale and picked up the pieces that they wanted. But the "merger" was a bailout for the McDonnell family. Had the company gone under, they would have gotten pennies on the dollar for their shares.
In fact, there are those who suspect that the Pentagon (friends of the McDonnells) encouraged Boeing to merge, using the last stage of the fighter contract competition as bait. It was a real sucker move on Boeing's part. Worse yet, much of Boeing's management has been replaced with McDonnell-Douglas management. That might be why we are seeing Boeing Commercial head down the same path Douglas Aircraft went.
Re:They had a shot at Airbus (Score:3, Interesting)