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Posted on 07/16/2006 8:03:59 PM PDT by Paleo Conservative
Britons travelling abroad are likely to be flying in plastic planes in the future, says the chief of Boeing.
All 737 planes would be made from non-metal materials, or composites, said president Alan Mulally.
Ahead of the Farnborough Air Show, the US plane giant boss said "all future planes will be made out of composites", because it does not corrode.
Millions of tourists fly in 737 planes each year. The Farnborough Air Show begins on Monday.
Composite are formed when two or more materials with differing properties are combined.
Such materials are already used in items such as tennis rackets and bicycle spokes.
The US company's new 787 Dreamliner - which is expected to make its first flight next year - is already being constructed using carbon fibre-reinforced plastic composites.
And he said the materials would be used when the company decided to update its popular 737 planes.
Mr Mulally said composites would be used to build up to half of each aircraft and would cut building and maintenance costs.
He predicted that the technology needed to build the new 737 planes would not be ready until the middle of the next decade.
"What's absolutely key is getting our technology to a position where it's right to do this," said Mr Mulally.
Mr Mulally predicted that airlines had now recovered sufficiently from the downturn in the wake of the 11 September attacks to begin adding new planes to their fleets.
Lighter composite materials are also thought to improve range and fuel efficiency.
"What's absolutely key is getting our technology to a position where it's right to do this"Alan Mulally
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I'd rather have titanium. Composites are not cheap, either.
They may not be cheap, but they require less labor to fabricate, and they don't require as much maintenance.
Material flexibility was always a problem with composites. Looks like they 'cured' it. (/pun)
I always thought the aircraft industry missed the bet by not going with cast iron ;^)
What technology are they referring to? Is this technology any different from the 787?
The Wright brothers abandoned cast iron over a century ago. They built their own cast aluminum engine block to decrease weight, because no existing engines met their requirements. Perhaps Langley might have used it in his steam powered flying machines.
Titanium needs preciously little maintenance, does not corrode and is impervious to sunlight/UV caused degradation [this last one is a bane of most plastics except teflon].
The current problem with composites is the difficulty of identifying internal cracking/crazing (or whatever). One phase of testing includes thumping on the suspect part like its a watermelon. Perhaps better non-destructible methods now exist--but I am not keen to see aircraft careening across the landscape/skyscape because of rudder or other control surface failure.
He's talking about replacing all the existing Boeing product lines with aircraft using the materials developed for the 787. Airbus is in for a world of hurt. Their A380 will have a short lifespan. After Boeing develops its plastic replacement for the 737 and 757, they will develop a plastic replacement for the 777-300 and 747's. They will have much lower CASM than the A380 and cause Airbus to shut down the A380 program decades earlier than they expected.
wasn't it a composite tail section that ripped of the Airbus over Rockaway NY?
I was reading that spilled hydraulic fluid was especially effective in weakening the composites Airbus used.
Titanium does weird things when exposed to certain types of radiation.
UTD in Dallas has produced transparant nanotubes which are strong enough to make the space elevator tether. BTW didn't Scottie bring transparant aluminum to the 20th century?
New materials are being produced that are lighter than aluminum and stronger than steel, and I don't mean titanium.
Carbon-graphite, carbon-composite,carbon-fiberglass are what is being discussed, and are old technology. Car bodies, Kite frames, RC planes, boats, all of these use that technology.
Some of this is obviously going into rebuild of our current airframes.
But, there is newer technology coming soon.
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