Posted on 12/19/2010 8:27:52 AM PST by buzzer
As Boeing prepares to announce yet another delay for the 787 Dreamliner at least three months, possibly six or more the crucial jet program is in even worse shape than it appears. The problems go well beyond the latest setback, an in-flight electrical fire last month that has grounded the test planes.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
Says a lot about their maintenance program.
Uh, I think Buck Rogers did it a few decades earlier.
I think there may have been at least a couple of upgrade programs too.
I have a sneaking suspicion they are having big problems with the integrity of the composite fuselage.
I read that they had some issues assembling the “big” pieces. The “rain in the plane” doesn’t sound too good either.
I understand that they made the first ones with the old modeler’s trick of using enough force to bend the parts to get the edges to match up, and then strong enough glue to hold it.
As part of their maintenance program, each or the B-52’s have been taken apart and put together better.
Each part has a time limit and it is replaced.
Still an incredible flight machine.
Of course you are wrong.
Building a hybrid car is very technical, uses lots of new technology and engineering. But it still is just a modification and extension of those who invented engines, vehicles, etc.
The Apollo program was certainly the same, NOT a start from zero.
You’re correct.
Without “our” Germans it would have taken a lot longer.
“Why in the Hell would you want to have different locations laid out all over the world planning and designing, then try and assemble the plane the same way?”
Reminds me of the Tower of Babel!!
BTW - I think part of the reason was cost (to avoid our high union labor wages), and also to get promises of orders from the countries that they subbed things out to.
yes many of the decisions that led directly to these problems were made on his watch. So he shouldn’t get a total pass on it.
Hint - Putting a man on the moon with the biggest rocket know to man is a gigantic leap from putting a basketball sized satellite in orbit.
No, I am not wrong.
You can blame unions for some things, but not for this.
Our youth spend more time on the computer and video games than actually building something with their own hands. It is the rare individual that builds Ham radios, RC planes or does home shop machining. Probably a major of the engineers at Boeing haven't even built a kite out of paper and balsa wood and made it fly.
You are really reaching here.
There is plenty of blame to go around on this one. SPEEA would be at the bottom of the list.
How true that is. I saw the MBA's destroy Hughes Aircraft Company.
Oh, I wasn’t putting all the blame there. Mgm’t has an equal share.
Not true. First, the union went on strike for two months, and you can bet that the actual days they were on strike were a small part of the slowdown which has now stretched the development of the Dreamliner to 3 years. Second, they extracted concessions which have made the marketing of the Dreamliner more difficult, and have made it more difficult to justify the expense of development, particularly on the schedule that was originally anticipated. When you have a union in the mix that is not working with management, you are going to have these problems. It does not surprise me a bit.
Most of the problems are a direct result of decisions made by top management at the very start.
The engineering unions share is NOT equal.
Ignoring your engineers’ advice doesn’t mean you both share the blame equally.
But the IAM strike happened after the airplane was already delayed. You can maybe blame them for a day for day slide so 50 days out of 3 years.
I hate unions as much as anybody but you just can't blame them for everything.
There is much Boeing could do to avoid strikes and to shorten them. There are two sides to a negotiating table.
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