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

xpost: the 757 >>>>>>>> any other boeing aircraft in commercial use.

This plane is smaller than the 747.

The best Boeing is the 777, me thinks.

probably not.

Will the future of commercial air travel be point-to-point on medium-sized, highly efficient airplanes (let's hope so), or hub-to-hub on massive, economy-of-scale utilizing planes (let's hope not)?

The A380 is pretty efficient, as planes go, as well, however that efficiency does depend on them being fully loaded, that goes for all planes.

The 787 is Boeing's all new replacement for the 757/767 series of smaller long distance planes. In response to the efficiency games, Airbus has put out a spoiler plane in the form of the A350 derivative (90% new design though) of the A330. Basically it comes from two different views of where air travel is going.

The dreamliner is a point to point airliner, ideal for smaller loading from smaller airports, it could easily be the spring board for inter-continental budget airlines, if it is as efficient as claimed.

The A350 is less radical than the dreamliner, but still a very advanced aircraft with heavy use of composites and should have comparable fuel economies with the 787 mainly through cramming in a few extra seats.

The A380 is about maximising capacity on congested routes from congested airports, Europe-East Coast, Tokyo-Osaka, although it's also been taken by Airlines such as Emirates and Singapore who are locked into hubs in tiny nation states and need to maximise number of seats on planes. You better beleive that someone is going to cram 800 seats on one of these things for the Tokyo Osaka run.

If the A380 is a success then Boeing can always revive it's 747-800 stretched version of the 747.

They'll be space for both in the market as they are going after different niches.

here's hoping. the market is definitely there for that. north america -> asia will do outstandingly well.

Someone needs to be working on powering these planes on vegetable oil/ethanol blends.

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 had the fun of flying on one of these this afternoon! i, uh, wasn't thrilled about it. looked like about half the southwest planes at lax were 737 maxes.

― circles, Wednesday, March 13, 2019 8:49 PM (one week ago)

probably an 737-800. Can confirm all the SWA 737 MAX flights in/out of LAX were cancelled one week ago.

This and the other comments about sensor triple redundancy in the article best sum up the engineering problems with the plane. The problems are more fundamental than "dumb planes are safer".

As R. John Hansman, a professor of aeronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told me in a March 28 interview,

"As I understand it, at high angles of attack the Nacelles -- which are the tube shaped structures around the fans -- create aerodynamic lift. Because the engines are further forward, the lift tends to push the nose up -- causing the angle of attack to increase further. This reinforces itself and results in a pitch-up tendency which if not corrected can result in a stall. This is called an unstable or divergent condition. It should be noted that many high performance aircraft have this tendency but it is not acceptable in transport category aircraft where there is a requirement that the aircraft is stable and returns to a steady condition if no forces are applied to the controls."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/petercohan/2019/04/02/mit-expert-highlights-divergent-condition-caused-by-737-max-engine-placement

got off a 737-800 a few hours ago and my knees are still feeling it. screw safety, what these things need is 3 more inches of legroom

I feel your pain as a 6'4" guy. Legroom is driven by the airlines' seating configuration, not the manufacturer. Our discomfort is another row or two of ticket revenue. NPR has an article that suggests nothing will change. Would like to see officials load their own families on a 90-second evac trial, and then praise seating arrangements.

Note to self - fly airbus

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20190403/p2g/00m/0bu/002000c

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/20/business/boeing-dreamliner-production-problems.html

Not great.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/aviation/how-the-boeing-737-max-disaster-looks-to-a-software-developer

not great.

Boeing Has So Many Grounded 737 Max Planes Waiting to Be Fixed They're Parking Them in the Employee Parking Lot

In a bit of good news, one company is interested in buying quite a few of them.

Boeing on Tuesday won its first order for 737 Max planes since the jets were grounded worldwide in March after two fatal crashes. The vote of confidence from British Airways’ parent sent shares of the manufacturer sharply higher.

International Consolidated Airlines Group, or IAG, signed a letter of intent at the Paris Air Show to order 200 Boeing 737 Max planes.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/18/british-airways-parent-places-first-new-order-for-boeing-737-max-since-grounding.html

For Seattle ilxors, you can view the parking lot in the jalopnik article from the south park bridge. It’s amazing, maybe 30 of them sitting along the river, iceland air and thai smile and turkish and so many others i don’t recognize

Boeing 737 MAX 8 Likely Grounded for Rest of 2019 After New Concerns Raised

Some of the language in that article is a maybe a little bit hyperbolic.

This is a bit more measured, Boeing still don't come out of it very well at all:

https://theaircurrent.com/aviation-safety/faa-and-boeing-initially-disagreed-on-severity-of-catastrophic-737-max-software-glitch/

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/18/magazine/boeing-737-max-crashes.html

That’s a good read.

Although it doesn’t really offer any solutions- just a very well researched and well written description of the problem. I’m mildly suspicious of the expert graybeards from central casting that he quotes throughout the piece, because it all seems a little one-sided, but then again the Indonesian and Ethiopian crews that are still around to talk are apparently not allowed to.

Boeing pilots' messages on 737 MAX safety raise new questions

https://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/news/200/john-barnett-on-why-he-wont-fly-on-a-boeing-787-dreamliner/

What is your own personal practice on flying Boeing aircraft now?

“When I worked on the 747, the 767, the 777 in Everett, those are beautiful planes. And the people there fully understood what it took to build a safe and airworthy aircraft. I hate to throw the entire label over the whole product line. But as far as the 787, I would change flights before I would fly a 787. I’ve told my family — please don’t fly a 787. Fly something else. Try to get a different ticket. I want the people to know what they are riding on.”

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a30470973/boeing-737-max-employees-emails/

I don’t want to read this. I’m just posting it here

"This airplane is designed by clowns, who in turn are supervised by monkeys.”

But the the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee provided excerpts of those messages to Bloomberg News that un-redacted the Indonesian carrier’s name.

“Now friggin Lion Air might need a sim to fly the MAX, and maybe because of their own stupidity. I’m scrambling trying to figure out how to unscrew this now! idiots,” one Boeing employee wrote in June 2017 text messages obtained by the company and released by the House committee.

In response, a Boeing colleague replied: “WHAT THE F%$&!!!! But their sister airline is already flying it!” That was an apparent reference to Malindo Air, the Malaysian-based carrier that was the first to fly the Max commercially.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-14/lion-air-idiots-sought-more-max-training-boeing-thwarted-it

is there anyway to check (in advance of booking) which type of aircraft will be used on your flight? would not fancy going on one of these for say, oooooh, about 10 years?

https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/9/22165956/boeing-737-max-flight-brazil-gol-airlines

Gol Airlines told the publication it plans to use the 737 Max in regular service starting later this month, and passengers who don’t want to fly on the plane will be able to exchange their tickets.

all airlines need to do this imo

You can go to FlightAware.com and enter your flight # which will give you a lot of data about that flight; below the flight map you'll see a log of scheduled flights and what aircraft will be used, plus a record of what aircraft were used in previous flights.

Some airlines' websites, e.g. JetBlue's, tell you the aircraft used for each flight when you go there to do your booking. I wouldn't say they're accurate 100% of the time but I think they generally are.

Another 737 gone missing after taking off from jakarta

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boeing-not-spirit-mis-installed-piece-that-blew-off-alaska-max-9-jet/

The fuselage panel that blew off an Alaska Airlines jet earlier this month was removed for repair then reinstalled improperly by Boeing mechanics on the Renton final assembly line, a person familiar with the details of the work told The Seattle Times.

If verified by the National Transportation Safety Board investigation, this would leave Boeing primarily at fault for the accident, rather than its supplier Spirit AeroSystems, which originally installed the panel into the 737 MAX 9 fuselage in Wichita, Kan.

That panel, a door plug used to seal a hole in the fuselage sometimes used to accommodate an emergency exit, blew out of Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 as it climbed out of Portland on Jan. 5. The hair-raising incident drew fresh and sharp criticism of Boeing’s quality control systems and safety culture, which has been under the microscope since two fatal 737 MAX crashes five years ago.

Last week, a different person — an anonymous whistleblower who appears to have access to Boeing’s manufacturing records of the work done assembling the specific Alaska Airlines jet that suffered the blowout — on an aviation website separately provided many additional details about how the door plug came to be removed and then mis-installed.

is there anyway to check (in advance of booking) which type of aircraft will be used on your flight? would not fancy going on one of these for say, oooooh, about 10 years?

KAYAK Lets Users Filter Out Boeing 737 Max 9 Flights After Door Blows Off Plane

oof

Nationalize Boeing

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/24/delta-air-lines-plane-nose-wheel-falls-off

More concerns as Alaska Airlines flight arrives at PDX gate with open cargo door
https://www.koin.com/news/alaska-airlines-safety-concerns-cargo-door-pictures-portland/

o_0

Boeing whistleblower found dead in US

It said the 62-year-old had died from a "self-inflicted" wound on 9 March and police were investigating.

Damn

Also this today https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2024/03/11/at-least-50-injured-on-latam-airlines-boeing-787-after-technical-problem-causes-sudden-drop-in-altitude/

Jon Oliver did a good piece on them last week, the gist of it is their only priority right now is shareholder value

I know nothing about financing, stocks, etc. But it seems to me that if I owned a business that I really cared about, I would never take it public.

Really good article that sums up Barnett's (the now dead whistleblower) complaints.

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/2024-03-28-suicide-mission-boeing/