Airbus Wiring Fixed For First A380 Only

Reuters ^ | January 26th, 2007 | Al Reuters

[smonk]

Airbus on Friday toned down expectations of an immediate solution to the technical glitches which delayed its A380 superjumbo project, saying wiring problems had been solved for the first aircraft only.

A German news report last week said that Airbus had solved the wiring installation problems, which delayed A380 deliveries by an average two years and drove the planemaker into the red.

Aviation watchers and some investors cheered the report, saying it closed the worst chapter in Airbus's 30 year history.

Gerhard Puttfarcken, head of Airbus's German operations, said Airbus had passed a key milestone in completing wiring for the first A380 to be delivered to Singapore Airlines in October and handling the transition to cabin installation.

But work was still going on to solve the long-term issues.

Airbus expects to start building a common design platform in the summer between its main French and German plants. It will be fully operational from the production of the 26th plane onwards.

"We are creating the conditions so that in future there will be one common platform from all the sites," Puttfarcken told a briefing for French journalists when asked to clarify the report.

Engineers found last year that wiring designed in Hamburg could not be fitted into A380s on the assembly line in Toulouse.

Experts blamed Airbus's failure to introduce sophisticated 3D design tools in Hamburg at the same time as Toulouse.

That in part reflected the four nation planemaker's incomplete integration, according to a diagnosis carried out by outside industrialist Christian Streiff, who served briefly as Airbus CEO last year and launched its Power8 restructuring plan.

The A380 backlogs cost the Airbus parent some EUR5 billion euros (USD$6.45 billion) in sacrificed profits over four years and triggered a political storm in both France and Germany, where most of Airbus's 55,000 staff are based. Britain and Spain also have Airbus factories.

[Lx]

...like the A320 family that would have to block seats at certain airports due to the angle of ascent and air temperatures...

Please explain?

[skeptoid]

I say 'jury rig'.

Jury Mast knot

It's nautical.

An the there is "jerry built"

[Pilsner]

Aluminum wiring... There were considerable problems with fires starting at connection points in houses.

My memory is that aluminum wiring is fine, so long as each and every breaker, wall socket, light fixture, switch and whatnot the aluminum wiring is connected to, is rated for aluminum wiring. If you run aluminum wiring to an unrated connection, you can get a fire. Builders started using aluminum wiring in the 1970s, when the price of copper shot up, but kept using the same old plugs and switches, which were rated for copper wire only. Hence the rash of house fires.

Since it is not possible, for the entire lifetime of the structure, to prevent some yahoo who does not know, or does not care, from connecting aluminum wiring to a plug or which rated for copper only, aluminum wiring has fallen out of residential use.

[norton]

"We hand-wired the first SIA aircraft, but we still haven't gotten the automated wiring harness fabrication perfected yet."

And probably don't have accurate diagrams, shop aids, or even measurements to repeat the job for "fixed" 380 number two.

[brooklin]

"Duct tape - The Airbus secret weapon"


If the flying public can't find you handsome... they may as well find you handy.

[PAR35]

"Airbus on Friday toned down expectations of an immediate solution to the technical glitches which delayed its A380 superjumbo project, saying wiring problems had been solved for the first aircraft only."

Sounds like they wired by hand, it worked, and then they discovered they didn't even document what they had done so they could replicate it on the next plane.

[Tainan]

"On the A320, it was the tail-strike mod, the pintle mod, the cabin deck mod at the wing roots.....etc.
It's truly a design consortium that produces airplanes meant to be scraped after 15 years."

Designed by Microsoft maybe?

[N. Theknow]

Gerhard Puttfarcken, head of Airbus's German operations

It's a double ping--aerospace AND silly names!

Chuckle everytime I think of the German word for terrible - furchtbar.

As in: Airbus haben furchtbar inordnung gemacht.

[N. Theknow]

Aluminum wiring, for a while, was used in housing, however, it is less conductive and more likely to develop resistance at the connection point than copper. There were considerable problems with fires starting at connection points in houses.

IIRC - Aluminum is so malleable that any connections have to be re-tightened about every 6 months or so as they become loose.

And that is in houses that do not take off and land several times a week.

[bert]

.....Aluminum is so malleable .....

I think the problem is related to thermal expansion. As the temperature changes the aluminum actually moves around and loosens up.

[backbencher]

[...the wiring in the aircraft is alumninum, not copper.]

Aluminum weighs less then copper which must be the reason for its use on the A380. Unfortunately, it causes fires, and shouldn't be used in homes or others places that need to be kept safe.