Boeing's 787 Dreamliner Takes Flight 278
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by
kdawson
from the million-lines-of-code-on-the-wing dept.
from the million-lines-of-code-on-the-wing dept.
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.
Re:Yawn. (Score:5, Interesting)
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!
Visit the plant in Everett. (Score:5, Interesting)
If you've never had the chance to go, check out the Future of Flight museum [futureofflight.org] 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.)
Re:And the wings might not even fall off in flight (Score:5, Interesting)
Which they've fixed [nwsource.com].
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.
Re:And the wings might not even fall off in flight (Score:3, Interesting)
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
Re:One of friends saw the flight... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:And the wings might not even fall off in flight (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Did they put a seperate door for the pilots? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Yawn. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:LOL. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:And the wings might not even fall off in flight (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:When do I get to fly in one? (Score:2, Interesting)
Being able to track your progress across the Pacific whenever you please definitely has its advantages.
Re:LOL. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:LOL. (Score:2, Interesting)
Yah, after Airbus forgot that copper and aluminum don't bend at the same rate and had to redo a whole lot of internal design when they changed the wiring.
Plus the A380 is only a 25% increase on the current big airliners. The 747 was more than double the size of current airliners when it flew, and Boeing didn't have taxpayers to pick up the pieces if it failed. Maybe some day Airbus will get off their backside and do something revolutionary and daring, but the A380 ain't it.
Re:And the wings might not even fall off in flight (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Re:ill-informed nonsense (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:ill-informed nonsense (Score:3, Interesting)
But in the end, that airplane landed. IIRC, the only fatality was a flight attendant that was stsnding in the aisle when the sunroof opened.
Whether carbon fiber or aluminum failure modes are better or worse, the fact remains that aluminum (and even most current carbon fiber) airframes have been constructed out of panels up until now. Even if oe panel disintegrates, or cracks completely, the structure can be designed to accomodate the loss of that panel. What happens when a fuselage section has no seam at which a crack will stop?
Currently, one other place that large structures are made as single carbon fiber components is racing yachts. And the history there has been grim. Fortunately, the boats that have literally broken in half and sank have all been accompanied by other craft, so the end effect on the crew was that they got wet.
Re:Did they put a seperate door for the pilots? (Score:3, Interesting)
Why would you need an exterior door? Make it a double set of locking doors with CCTV to effectively make it a gate where no one can rush or sneak in and you should be all set. It won't help if you can threaten the door open but these days I think people would rather have a lethal fight in the cabin than surrender the cockpit.
Re:One of friends saw the flight... (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Sprooce (Score:3, Interesting)
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.