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Does the latest Boeing 787 delay damage your confidence?
Boeing announced that the 6/30/09 first flight of the 787 was canceled because they need structural reinforcements to part of the side of the plane. Even the A380 wasn't delayed because of inadequate structure. They are building customer 787s and the first one has never lifted a wheel off the ground under its own power, this concerns me. Up to now I assumed they knew what they were doing, but this is very late in the game to discover your fuselage isn't strong enough. Am I simply unreasonably cautious?
I mean that structural engineering, the calculation of loads and material strengths, is generally a fairly solid science. Finite element analysis and all that. So to discover a week before the first flight that your aircraft fuselage isn't strong enough... well that's a BIG discovery to make at the 23:58 in your design. Which makes me wonder how rigerous they have been in this design. Boeing has lost a lot of design engineers in disputes over the last decade and they contracted the fuselage out to Japan, so now I wonder how well it was made by non-Boeing folks.
5 Answers
- Vincent GLv 71 decade agoFavourite answer
The problem is not that the plane is made of composites. The problem is that the last time Boeing designed an airliner (the 777) was 15 years ago (first flight of the 777: June 12 1994).
Where do you think all the staff went between the 777 and 787? What happened to the expertise, the experience?
And when it was time to start the next project, let's hire fresh (and cheap) people with little if any experience.
Result?
Well, you see it. 2 years delay and counting.
I do not loose faith in their design capability for a final product, the certification process takes care of ensuring that the plane will be safe. But in the management that was there 10 years ago, there is very little respect left, I'd say.
If one learns best from mistakes, then they are learning. The final question is: will management have learned their lesson for the *next* plane, or will they lay-off people by the truck load yet again, losing all their hard-earned experience?
- grumpy geezerLv 61 decade ago
You mean that taking the time to get it right should damage one's confidence? I should think that the opposite would be the case.
When you consider the fact that although composite aircraft structure has been around for years, the fuselage of a pressurized airliner is pretty new territory. An airliner will possibly fly more in five years than a comparable military aircraft will in twenty. (I'll admit that I'm still a bit skeptical of the composite fuselage idea. I have had composite structures fail on me. The first time that a 787 fuselage pops will spell the end for Boeing.)
- don1862Lv 41 decade ago
I would rather that they be late and be safe. The delay does not worry nearly as much as a safety issue would. The delay may not even hurt them as much financially as it would have couple of years ago. They do have a big backlog of orders which the delay makes worse. But with the current economy, some of the customers may not mind the delay. Some airline companies may not want to take delivery at this time because of the the global recession. When Boeing gets the problems corrected and is able to manufacture the plane, maybe the timing will be just right.
- 1saintofGodLv 61 decade ago
I want to ride on the 77 and the, I think, it is the 88. A little damage of the 87 does not deter me from riding a Jet.
- gromit801Lv 71 decade ago
Nope. I feel more confident because they are finding these issues, and correcting them.
No design is perfect off the computer. Period.
