Production of Boeing 787 Dreamliner Delayed Again 334
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."
Re:Would this be the place (Score:5, Informative)
It's a little more than just outsourcing - Boeing had cut their internal engineering resources to the point where they didn't have the capacity to do all of design work in house. Since you don't just go out and hire a few thousand airframe structural engineers the only option left was to outsource - and now it turns out the partners they had vastly overstated their capabilities. After all, any engineer is the same as any other, right?
My brother is an engineer at Boeing... he claims that this is the most screwed up engineering project in terms of cost in human history. I think he has a point.
Not so lightweight? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
inaccurate (Score:5, Informative)
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 [flightglobal.com]
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.
Re:7x7 is the only big jet to fly (Score:4, Informative)
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).
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Would this be the place (Score:5, Informative)
It's a manufacturing problem related to the connection between the fuselage stringers and skin. Alenia and Boeing have known about it for a while. Alenia can't make the stringers with a close enough tolerance on the landing (the "bottom" that bonds to the skin) to get a proper cure of the skin and Boeing refuses to relax the tolerances. Until they can agree on a manufacturing fix they have stopped work.
The fix for the parts already made is to put an exterior patch. That's usually a last resort but not unheard of. Customers don't like to get new airplanes with visible patches on them.
Alenia has scrapped two barrels and sectioned them to get a good look at the internals of the problem. The manufacturing fix will be pretty straightforward, probably a few extra plies in the skin to make up for some reduced thickness in the stringer landing.
Alenia likely did a facir (first article conformity inspection report) on the first barrel which is where they cut the first barrel up and look at sections to find wrinkles and other things. The problem is, they changed the mfg process on the stringers after the facir. Not unusual, but they blew it when they asserted that the new method would be equivalent to the original that passed the facir.
Re:It's hard at the bleeding edge. (Score:3, Informative)
Um, no. The 747's had huge issues because of Pratt and Whitney's inability to deliver the engine they promised. There were no major issues with the aircraft itself.
Re:Anyone seeing parallels to IT projects here?? (Score:3, Informative)
frequently (Score:3, Informative)
Russian planes fly with airlines worldwide. Just two examples:
Tu-154 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-154 [wikipedia.org] "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 [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 [wikipedia.org]
Re:Let's hear it for.. (Score:3, Informative)
If I'm not mistaken, they manufacture/assemble in over 5 different countries.
So, let's hear it for mindless peddling of stupid ideas that are based on arbitrary political boundaries.
Re:7x7 is the only big jet to fly (Score:5, Informative)
Citation Provided.
Accidents by aircraft type. [airfleets.net]
Fatalities by aircraft type. [airfleets.net]
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.
Re:Would this be the place (Score:5, Informative)
The Big Dig numbers you quote are rather distorted by inflation and included interest costs. Stripping out these factors the original cost estimate works out to 6bil and the final cost is 14.8bill.
The 787 overruns PRIOR to this wrinkle problem are 11bil.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:7x7 is the only big jet to fly (Score:3, Informative)
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 [wikipedia.org]
Of course, it rather depends on the length of your drive...
Re:And somewhere across the pond... (Score:3, Informative)
The article you linked says the A380 is "sold out until 2014", seems like a pretty good position to be in during a recession to me.
Re:A few words... (Score:5, Informative)
Perhaps you'd prefer Scientific American: http://preview.tinyurl.com/lvnqa3 [tinyurl.com]
rj
Re:Boeing ain't what it used to be (Score:2, Informative)
that Boeing moved production all over the place basically to bust one of the few strong unions we've had up here in Washington.
That's not true -- they spread everything around so that every state / country could get a piece of the action. Boeing's payback for that was lower taxes (from states) or the ability to sell the product in that other country (or at least be able to bid w/o it being given to Airbus automatically).
However Boeing is trying to put a lot of blame on the union and that is entirely unwarranted: all Boeing's problems are due to using subcontractors in far away places and then trying to bring it all back together in one piece. It was an ambitious plan but it hasn't worked.
Re:Would this be the place (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Anyone seeing parallels to IT projects here?? (Score:2, Informative)
The Boeing 787 is not only brand new, but it was built using revolutionary materials (extensive use of composites) and a new process in design (totally on computers) and a brand new method of fabrication (outsourced). Growing pains.
Re:Would this be the place (Score:5, Informative)
That tells me it's Boeing's fault that the problem exists, not the Italian manufacturers.
No, it's Alenia's.
There are two issues here. The first is that the wing body join failed earlier than it was supposed to - that's a design fault on Boeing's part. The second is that starting with the seventh frame, the fuselage skin was wrinkled. That's a production fault.
Alenia has since admitted that they changed production processes after the seventh frame, and something having to do with that change caused the faults. This issue has already been resolved. The information in this article is apparently a bit old, although the issues it brings up are still at least somewhat valid... though there is honestly no practical way of building an airliner these days without using offshore suppliers. But it highlights the dangers of lowest-bidder contracts.
Re:It's hard at the bleeding edge. (Score:4, Informative)
Boeing pulled out the 787 after scrapping the Sonic Cruiser. It had nothing to do with the A380. Boeing had already been down the VLA route before Airbus had and decided there was no market.
You could say the A380 was a reaction to Boeing's "challenge" offered by the 747-700X [airliners.net], which was first offered in 1996. Boeing received no interest from airlines, leading them to explore smaller airplanes. The A380 had nothing to do with it.
The 747-8 could be considered a reaction to the A380, although it is obviously smaller than both the A380 and the proposed 747-700X. But that was Boeing saying "ok, look, you guys said you didn't want this in 1996, but if you've all now changed your mind about wanting a bigger plane with a better cost per seat mile, here it is."
Re:7x7 is the only big jet to fly (Score:3, Informative)
There are ten times as many 737s as there are A300s so 3 times the number of fatalities is still 3 times safer.
Re:Not so lightweight? (Score:3, Informative)
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.
And this kind of thing happens all the time with new airplanes, and the first few airplanes are then just given at a slight discount. It's no big deal to the airlines. These are carbon panels about 1/8 inch thick; they don't weigh a tremendous amount.
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.
If you were talking tons of extra weight, yes. But the fix Boeing has come up with is literally a couple of extra kilograms. (I'm talking about the second issue now; the fixes for both issues are literally about 10kg total.) That's not going to drive anybody to a competitor's airplane, and the total weight penalty is going to be negligible. About the same as carrying an extra food cart on the plane on every trip.
Re:I would rather have a Boeing that is late... (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:It's hard at the bleeding edge. (Score:1, Informative)
A good manager is worth the higher salary if he or she amplifies the productivity of everyone on his/her team. That is what good management is all about: clearing the way for the productive members of the team to be as productive as possible, and to be more productive than they could have been working alone. It isn't a pyramid scheme if the manager is truly making his/her team members more productive; in that case, they are worth the higher salary because they are indirectly generating more revenue for the company. I believe your problem is with the companies and HR departments that retain ineffective managers at their higher salaries despite all evidence suggesting they aren't worth the money.
Re:I would rather have a Boeing that is late... (Score:3, Informative)
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?)
Re:Would this be the place (Score:3, Informative)
I understood about 50% of that. The rest was either terminology I just plain don't know, or things I could kinda guess.
I understood only half, too, but I googled around a bit and found that CATIA and PATRAN are (CAE) software packages for aerospace engineering:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CATIA [wikipedia.org]
http://www.mscsoftware.com/products/patran.cfm [mscsoftware.com]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer-aided_engineering [wikipedia.org]