the new Boeing 787s -- don't let them pass you by (in 2008)!

lol

why not just stay on yr continent, then you can use the best ever form of transport: train.

Clearly the best advancement in international transport would be to build superfast elevators through the center of the Earth. Something like a pneumatic tube.

http://zapatopi.net/pneumatic/beachsub2.jpg

http://zapatopi.net/pneumatic/beachsub.jpg

http://www.uboatarchive.net/JtOpsCtr11.jpg
Craig keeps a close eye
http://www.uboatarchive.net/JtOpsCtr6.jpg
Jenny updates the big chart

its often said that safety occupies this top spot, but it seems to actually occupy maybe....10th place, priority-wise?

Pretty poorly

Have you ever seen a graphite hockey stick break?

Not really the same stuff. The design the composite to have the mechanical properties for the job.

JBR OTM re: smaller planes, especially in mid-size/small markets. 80% of my flights are on 50-seat regional jets or props, and another 15% are on DC-9s, which aren't really modern aircraft in any sense of the word. Only place I'll ever see these super-planes is across the tarmac while connecting at O'Hare.

Apparently the regional carriers have much less restrictive labor contracts than the majors, so their overhead is lower. The regionals are probably closer to what the future industry will look like.

I do a lot of inter-continental flying, because I live in a foreign country. So I get to fly on 777s all the time (for 13 hours).

What a half-billion dollar A380 gets you: http://gizmodo.com/5279529/inside-the-485+million-airbus-a380-flying-palace

My dad works on the 787 line and says it's the most fubar-ed project he's worked on in 30 years at Boeing. Apparently, instead of building parts in house as they usually do, they sourced out all the individual components and their getting back all these parts from seperate companies that don't fit together. The guys on the line like him have the unenviable task of trying to assemble all these non-matching parts. He blames the fact that the current upper management are all business people without aerospace experience who don't know anything about the realities of building airplanes.

the "jenny updates the big chart" photo upthread is ridiculously cool.

What a A380 hard landing looks like: http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/exclusivevids/EAAAirVenture2009_AirbusA380_HardLanding_200850-1.html

Wow, do all airliners have that much flex in the wings when they touch down?

Meanwhile, the 787 (now delayed for the fifth time) is possibly just a mediocre aircraft

And ANOTHER delay on the 787

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."

And perhaps inevitably, Hitler gets news that his order of 787's is going to be delayed again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BF_P77VEPKA

lol

And FINALLY.

Boeing's 787 Dreamliner has taken off on its first test flight - almost two and a half years late.
It had been grounded by a series of hitches, including design problems, strikes and even a shortage of bolts.
Boeing has pegged its hopes for the future on the plane, which promises to be one of the most fuel-efficient in the world.
It has attracted some 840 orders from all over the globe, although some have been cancelled because of the delays.
Its popularity is partly thanks to its lightweight design. Made of carbon and titanium, it should reduce fuel consumption as well as save on maintenance costs.
The first test flight is due to last around four hours, as the two pilots examine how the Dreamliner operates.
"They will essentially make sure that the airplane under normal circumstances flies the way it is supposed to," said Boeing spokesman Jim Proulx.

those wings look so delicate

I love the way they swoop up but its going to be weird sitting in the middle of that thing because the window view will be all wing.

I'm going to be pretty paranoid if I ever fly in one of these things

Angus Batey on the 787

Anatomy of the Airbus A380 QF32 near disaster

key paragraph:

One thing needs to be kept firmly in mind. Rolls-Royce the maker of the Trent 900 engine which disintegrated knew about the faults that the current airworthiness directive concerning these engines says are likely to have caused an intense oil fire in a structural cavity in the intermediate pressure turbine area of the engine.

Rolls-Royce had designed and was introducing a fix for the oil leak issues for this into the engines at its own speed. Qantas was left in the dark. It is fair to suggest that Qantas needs to review relationships with engine manufacturers in which it pays for power by-the-hour and leaves much of the maintenance and oversight of those engines to the designer and manufacturer.

Stuff like this reminds me why I'm increasingly antsy about flying...

not being taken for sexytime in the TSA VIP suite then?

Drama in the cockpit: Qantas crew faced 54 alarms

Nobody trains for chaos like this. Out the pilots' left window, far above the ocean, an engine as big as a bus had disintegrated, blasting shrapnel holes in the superjumbo's wing. And now an overwhelming flood of computer alarms was warning the pilots that critical systems might be failing.

Two weeks after the pilots somehow landed their Qantas jetliner and its 450 passengers, their two-hour cockpit drama was described Thursday in an interview with The Associated Press by the vice president of the Australian and International Pilots Association.

"The amount of failures is unprecedented," said Richard Woodward, a fellow Qantas A380 pilot who has spoken to all five pilots. "There is probably a one in 100 million chance to have all that go wrong."

But it did.

Engine pieces sliced electric cables and hydraulic lines in the wing. Would the pilots still be able to fly the seven-story-tall plane?

The wing's forward spar — one of the beams that attaches it to the plane — was damaged as well. And the wing's two fuel tanks were punctured. As fuel leaked out, a growing imbalance was created between the left and right sides of the plane, Woodward said.

The electrical power problems prevented the pilots from pumping fuel forward from tanks in the tail. The plane became tail heavy.

That may have posed the greatest risk, safety experts said. If the plane got too far out of balance, the Singapore-to-Sydney jetliner would lose lift, stall and crash.
And then there was that incredible stream of computer messages, 54 in all, alerting the pilots to system failures or warning of impending failures.

One warned that a ram air turbine — a backup power supply — was about to deploy, although that never did happen, Woodward said. The message was especially worrisome because the system deploys only when main power systems are lost. The smaller backup supply is able only to power vital aircraft systems.

That's "the last thing you need in that kind of situation," he said.

The pilots watched as computer screens filled, only to be replaced by new screenfuls of warnings, he said.

"I don't think any crew in the world would have been trained to deal with the amount of different issues this crew faced," Woodward said.

As luck would have it, there were five experienced pilots — including three captains — aboard the plane. The flight's captain, Richard de Crespigny, was being given his annual check ride — a test of his piloting skills — by another captain. That man was himself being evaluated by a third captain. There were also first and second officers, part of the normal three-pilot team. In all, the crew had over 100 years of flying experience.

De Crespigny concentrated on flying the plane, while the others dealt with the computer alarms and made announcements to the giant planeload of passengers, some of whom said they were frantically pointing to flames streaming from the engine. Working flat out, it took 50 minutes for the pilots work through all of the messages.

When pilots receive safety warnings, they are supposed to check the airline's operating manual and implement specific procedures. But with so many warnings, the Qantas pilots had to sort through and prioritize the most serious problems first.

It's likely that for some of the problems there were no procedures because no airline anticipates so many things going wrong at once, John Goglia, a former National Transportation Safety Board member said.

Attention since the Nov. 4 incident has focused on the Airbus 380's damaged Rolls Royce engine. As many as half of the 80 engines that power A380s, the world's largest jetliners, may need to be replaced, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce said Thursday. That raises the possibility of shortages that could delay future deliveries of the superjumbo.

Qantas has grounded its fleet of six A380s.

The drama two weeks ago still wasn't over when the pilots finally got the plane back to Singapore and the runway was in sight.

Wing flaps that are used to slow the plane were inoperable. So were the landing gear doors. The pilots used gravity to lower the gear.

Brake temperatures reached over 1,650 degrees Fahrenheit during the landing, causing several flat tires. If fuel leaking from the damaged wing had hit the brakes, it could have caused a fire. The pilots allowed the plane to roll almost to the end of the runway so it would be close to fire trucks that could put foam on the brakes and undercarriage.

Among the other issues Woodward said the pilots faced:

• When the engine failed it caught fire, but the fire suppression system was difficult to deploy.

• An electrical bus — a connection between electrical devices — on the left wing failed. The plane was designed so that a second bus on the same wing or the two buses on the opposite wing would pick up the load. That didn't happen.

Actually, Woodward praised the plane, saying it was a testament to its strength that it was able to continue to fly relatively well despite all the problems. But he also said it's likely reconsideration will be given to the design and location electrical wiring in the wings.

Ruh roh....

All Nippon Airways (ANA) announced it was canceling Wednesday flights among its fleet of the trouble-beset Boeing 787 Dreamliner after a battery alarm signal activated on one plane, prompting an emergency landing in Japan.
Flight 692, with 129 passengers, made an unscheduled landing at Takamatsu airport, airline officials said. It left Yamaguchi Ube Airport and was en route to Haneda, airline spokesman Takuya Taniguchi said.
Those on board reported a burning smell in the cabin.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/15/travel/japan-dreamliner-emergency-landing/index.html

Both ANA and Japan Airlines have grounded their 787 fleet for now.

It'll probably blow over in a few weeks, as is tradition.

Not quite KBP: FAA has grounded all 787s. This might be the biggest lemon since the DC-10!

NY Times today: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/business/global/deepening-crisis-for-the-dreamliner.html

The 787 proves that outsourcing your design with a million different parts to hundreds of factories in a few dozen countries speaking a few dozen different languages just doesn't work as well as outsourcing running shoes and digital cameras.

Never, but never, fly on one if you have the slightest choice in the matter.

That NYTimes article is already obsolete, here's their new one:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/business/faa-orders-grounding-of-us-operated-boeing-787s.html?pagewanted=all

The 787 proves that outsourcing your design with a million different parts to hundreds of factories in a few dozen countries speaking a few dozen different languages just doesn't work as well as outsourcing running shoes and digital cameras.

Never worked well for the B-1 bomber either (Rockwell and SAC took the tactic of outsourcing component manufacturing to as many congressional districts as possible)

Qatar has grounded the 787 fleet as well now, so errr...

I still reckon this will blow over in the end (but I'll say months rather than weeks now), as Boeing are dealing with technical issues rather than major structural faults (not that you'd want to deal with the former in the middle of a twelve hour flight, of course).

The oil seals thing on the A380 caused a similar grounding. This seems worse, not least because the Oil seals were only in one out of two engine choices whereas these battery boxes are in all 787s, and worse because the delays to the 787 programme were worse in the first place and they've already had high profile issues with outsourced components.

Yeah no...

What It's like to Fly the What It's like to Fly the $23,000 Singapore Airlines Suites Class3,000 Singapore Airlines Suites Class

In 2008, Singapore Airlines introduced their Suites Class, the most luxurious class of flying that is commercially available.

The Suites were exclusive to their flagship Airbus A380, and they go beyond flat beds by offering enclosed private cabins with sliding doors that cocoon you in your own little lap of luxury. The interior was designed by French luxury yacht designer Jean-Jacques Coste and comes along with a plush soft leather armchair hand-stitched by the Italian master craftsmen Poltrona Frau. Perhaps most well-known of all, Singapore Airlines became the first and only commercial airline with a double bed in the sky.

However, the experience came with a hefty price tag. With round-trip tickets costing up to S$23,000 (or US$18,400), it was completely unattainable for most people.

Formerly, the only way for an average person to fly in the Suites was to take out a bank loan. And then I remembered that most of my personal net worth exists in frequent flier miles rather than cash.

straight up, the FAA doesn't fuck around, so at least i made sure everything i was doing was always by procedure.

for example, products we supplied airlines had to be assembled, painted, tested, etc. at certain approved temperatures and humidity. one year, the facility manager decided that to save some money they were going to hold off on repairing the AC system. flash forward to May/June and the AC hasn't been fixed and a heat wave is going through the area. the production area was hitting 95+ F and terrible humidity. it took program managers to get them to let them know we were violating government regulations to finally get them to fix the AC. but that's the kinda snakey shit i started seeing upper upper management were doing to save a buck/get their next promotion.

yep, and I bet that was x10 at Boeing

Cracks In KC-46 Pegasus Tankers Halt All Deliveries
https://www.twz.com/air/cracks-in-kc-46-pegusus-tankers-halt-all-deliveries

...compendium of Boeing failures continues at link

Something truly post-apocalyptic about seeing an A380 being scrapped... pic.twitter.com/kd4TZMyEwW

— Zaphod Beeblebrox (@Zaphod2042) April 17, 2025

The first, second, and so far only long-haul flights I ever took were on an Airbus A380. My enduring memory is of discovering that the headphone socket for the in-flight entertainment was in the handrest about an hour before landing on the return flight. For a while they were a really common sight in the skies over London because the major customer was Emirates, who bought a huge fleet of them seemingly so that lots of people could fly from London to Dubai.

I remember reading that they couldn't be converted into cargo planes because the top deck wasn't strong enough to carry pallets. If the deck was reinforced the aircraft wouldn't have enough engine power to take off, and in any case it would have been difficult to load the top deck. So unlike the Boeing 747 it didn't have an afterlife as a cargo plane. And the Boeing 777 could land at a much wider range of airports. The only two airports the A380 could land in Spain were Madrid and Tereul, a maintenance facility which isn't open to the public, whereas the 777 could land in Malaga etc.

I learn from the internet that Virgin Atlantic ordered six A380s in 2001, then waited and waited and waited until eventually cancelling their order in 2018 because fuel was just too expensive. They dodged a bullet there. I'm also reminded that during the COVID pandemic Singapore Airlines used one of their A380s as a pop-up restaurant:
https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/singapore-pop-up-restaurant-sells-out-in-30-minutes-trnd/index.html

Customers bought a ticket to sit in a static A380 and have a (presumably freshly-cooked meal). There were also sightseeing "flights to nowhere" that took off and landed from the same runway, giving people the chance to see Antarctica / the Southern Lights / Hong Kong etc from the air without having to pass through international arrivals. Like in Dawn of the Dead, where the undead instinctively flocked to a shopping mall, because they were re-enacting their former lives.

Ten year old documentary on Boeing and the 787 suddenly relevant

Our journalism reveals the deeply-held safety concerns of current and former Boeing engineers, who in some cases fear to fly on the 787, the plane they build.

We uncover allegations of on-the-job drug use, quality control problems and poor workmanship.

We explore the roots of the battery problems that led to the plane’s grounding due to safety concerns for three months from January 2013.

For more on the investigation, visit http://www.aljazeera.com/boeing787

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvkEpstd9os

so uh, air india... pilot cut off the fuel switches? both of them?

Accidentally, without knowing, it seems

consensus i've seen is deliberate - murder-suicide :(

the older pilot, in his early 50's only had a few more flights left until he was due to retire and dedicate all his time to being a f/t carer for his elderly dad.

jfc

There's an investigation under way that will likely take months before we have a conclusion based on all the facts, so nothing conclusive can be drawn at this stage.

I find it implausible that they both planned a suicide right after take-off and exchanged last words ("did you cut the fuel off ? no I didn't") to simulate an accident / muddle the investigation. Or that even the copilot turned them off discretely when they're in the middle of the deck, denied doing it in conversation, they put them back on, and crashed to their death. Accidentally doing so also seems highly unlikely. Meanwhile there's this fuel control switch being installed with the locking feature disengaged + FAA issuing a non-mandatory directive not carried out by Air India... All this to say that the cause is still very open and it's premature to lean one way or the other.

Still amazed that one guy survived, relatively unscathed.

I haven't seen anyone suggest that they planned a suicide together. And they haven't said who said what, as far as I know.

Most likely to me seems that one cut the fuel, then asked the other pilot "did you cut the fuel off" to muddle the investigation and try to direct blame / deflect shame on his family. Then the other pilot tried to turn them back on, but it was too late.

But you are right ... we do not know for sure, but an accident seems unlikely.

Bright spot for Boeing then!

Also every time is see this thread I get Ringo singing “Don’t Pass Me By” in my head.

There is an ex-pilot saying this still could be a Boeing hardware fuck-up, some dodgy chip that needed remedial work that never happened or some kind of vmic Boeing sounding shit like that. FAA says their fuel switches are fine ... yada yada. You couldn't pay me to get inside one of them flying-deathtrap pieces of shit.

There was a rumor in the flightsim community that switch->CUTOFF was how you reset the 787 in MSFS but now its impossible to search anything related to this