Official: Britain out of Airbus

[Timmy C]

Guess he read it in print =/

[Werner]

Regret to tell you that I have no idea what it is.

You mean, you read it on (shudders) dead trees?

[ar]

I am well over sixty years of age.

[Werner]

I am well over sixty years of age.

And I am what? You are well-disposed to employ technology. "Up-to-date" might be a better term. We have had SLEP or mid-life refits which allow employment of this new art....

[ar]

I am well over sixty years of age.

And I am what?

Then you will understand.

[Werner]

Yes... I heard from a Boeing confidant that the subcontractors used sloppy specs to screw Boeing out of a lot of money. A number of them used loopholes to further subcontract the work to others who were not (generally speaking) qualified to produce the products specified.

It looks like a tenure program for a large number of lawyers.

Perhaps Boeing execs should have spent more time on this project, and less time selecting and redecorating their new corporate offices in Chicago. (Why on Earth anyone would choose this wasteland for their headquarters is anyone's guess. Perhaps it's because we have the best prostitutes this side of Bankok).

[ar]

I would think that one could access the Journal 7th December issue, after midnight tonight. Internet search?

[ar]

Article begins on page one of A1 and onto page A13. Several thousand words. Some of it may be new to you and others.

[Tracy White]

Not sure how long this link will work so I'll repost some of the article here. As a comment, Boeing execs got over-exuberant with their outsourcing on the 787 and it's biting them back now.

From http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1196987 ... lenews_wsj

JET BLUES
Boeing Scrambles to Repair
Problems With New Plane
Layers of Outsourcing
Slow 787 Production;
'Hostage to Suppliers'

EVERETT, Wash. -- On Tuesday, Boeing Co. will give Wall Street a progress report on its 787 Dreamliner, as it scrambles to overcome a six-month delay in producing the new jet. A look inside the project reveals that the mess stems from one of its main selling points to investors -- global outsourcing.

When the Chicago aerospace giant set out four years ago to build the fuel-sipping jet, it figured the chief risk lay in perfecting a process to build much of the plane from carbon-fiber plastic instead of aluminum. Boeing focused so hard on getting the science right that it didn't grasp the significance of another big change: The 787 is the first jet in Boeing's 91-year history designed largely by other companies.

::snip::

Today, the Dreamliner is at least six months late, and the goal of delivering 109 planes by the end of 2009 is threatened. Rather than being well into flight tests, Boeing is rushing to get the first planes airborne while it helps suppliers around the world bring their factories up to speed.

::snip::

The missteps underscore the hazards and limits of outsourcing -- especially with a brand-new airplane, the most complex machine in mass production. Lessons that Boeing is learning the hard way could end up helping rival Airbus, a unit of European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co. Airbus has said it plans to use a similar model of global suppliers to build a competing plane that should be ready in about five years.

::snip::

The plan calls for suppliers to ship mostly completed fuselage sections, already stuffed with wiring and other systems, to Boeing facilities around Seattle so they could be put together in as few as three days. Existing production methods can keep a plane the size of the Dreamliner in the final-assembly area for a month.

But many of these handpicked suppliers, instead of using their own engineers to do the design work, farmed out this key task to even-smaller companies. Some of those ended up overloading themselves with work from multiple 787 suppliers, Boeing says.

The company says it never intended for its suppliers to outsource key tasks such as engineering, but that the situation seemed manageable at the time. "We tended to say, 'They know how to run their businesses,'" says a Boeing executive familiar with the company's thinking.

"Now Boeing is hostage to the suppliers, and there's very little they can do about it," says Tom Wroblewski, president in the Seattle region for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which was critical of all the outsourcing.

::snip::

Not until the first Dreamliner was unveiled in July did Boeing realize the magnitude of its troubles. In an effort to meet the rollout target for the 787 of 7/8/07, Boeing told suppliers to ship partly completed sections to its final-assembly bay in Everett.

Boeing believed that the first plane's biggest problem was a shortage of specialized nuts and bolts needed to put it together. The industry-wide shortage was worse on the Dreamliner because it required dozens of new fasteners not used on other planes. At the rollout ceremony, thousands of employees and invited guests milled around beneath a Dreamliner that had more than 1,000 temporary fasteners embedded under its shiny coat of Boeing blue and white paint.

When mechanics later opened boxes and crates accompanying the fuselage sections, they found them filled with thousands of brackets, clips, wires and other items that already should have been installed. In some cases, officials say, components came with no paperwork at all, or assembly instructions written in Italian, requiring translation.

Boeing officials thought they could work through this unexpected twist in a couple of weeks. Instead, they had to put the plane up on jacks and remove its engines and tail to get to tight spots.

And there's more, of course.

[Guest]

[
The 787 is the first real push in commercial aviation technology since 1960. The A380 is probably the very finest example of current technology. It is delayed by damning incompetence in management. The 787 contains substantial new (and largely unproven) technology, some of which our friends who make resin ships would understand. It is delayed by exposure to unknowns in a "new horizons" project.

There is very little in either the A380 or the B787 that has not already been well proven in military aviation, or indeed even in private aviation. Commercial aircraft construction technology is about 25 years behind military technology, and at least a 15 years behind private aviation.

[Guest]

Sadly this may well be true . High speed transatlantic sea travel is the answer. If my memory serves me correct did the SS United States make the crossing in slightly over 72hours . Well it may be possible to go a little faster and with more comfort . I'm for the SS United States bring it out of retirement.
Dave Wooley

Sorry that's nonsense. If it's a question of CO2, how much fuel to make a high speed sea crossing in a big ship?? I'd have to lose 6 days of my vacation time (maybe more counting a train ride if we're being consistent) just to see my folks in Vancouver? I am an ex-pat in Europe btw.

A fully loaded gas turbine (turbofan) powered commercial aircraft burns about 1/2 tons of fuel to move each passenger across the Atlantic. The gas turbine powered cruise ships Queen Mary 2 burn on the order of 1 ton of fuel to move each passenger across the Atlantic. I can't believe express ship travel is kinder to the environment than air travel.

[Guest]

Regret to tell you that I have no idea what it is.

You mean, you read it on (shudders) dead trees?

Hmmm, if you put it that way, aren't you sitting upon dismembered corpses of trees now? Are not eviscerated trees holding up your roof? What's wrong with dead trees?

[Tracy White]

Commercial aircraft construction technology is about 25 years behind military technology, and at least a 15 years behind private aviation.

Yeah, but they operate in a completely different economic environment. the 787 is the first time full composites have been ECONOMICALLY viable for commercial aircraft.

[Guest]

Commercial aircraft construction technology is about 25 years behind military technology, and at least a 15 years behind private aviation.

Yeah, but they operate in a completely different economic environment. the 787 is the first time full composites have been ECONOMICALLY viable for commercial aircraft.

Perhaps, but these technology are still well PROVEN even if they have not hitherto been ECONOMICALLY.

[Werner]

The 787 is the first real push in commercial aviation technology since 1960. .... It is delayed by exposure to unknowns in a "new horizons" project.

There is very little in either the A380 or the B787 that has not already been well proven in military aviation, or indeed even in private aviation. Commercial aircraft construction technology is about 25 years behind military technology, and at least a 15 years behind private aviation.

Not so. The composites have only been used on the Beech Starliner and a few Japanese F-16 knock-offs (which have been having severe delamination problems). Unlike the A380, this is a real new horizon project. The A350 is obviously going to benefit from the lessons learned at Boeing.

[ar]

I hear that the new Boeing has been pushed back several MORE months. Will now be over a year before first delivery takes place.

[Werner]

The delay is currently about 10 months, which is probably the edge beyond which Boeing should expect some cancellations.

Boeing and Airbus are suffering delay as symptoms of different problems. The 787 is a technological stretch and a significant change in aircraft, perhaps as much a stretch as was the 707 in the 1950s. The A380 is essentially a conventional aircraft, and it's delays are caused by management incompetence and sloppy quality assurance in the development process.

[chuck]

Airbus / Northrop Grumman's A330 based KC-30 tanker defeated Boeing's B767 based KC-767 to win $40 Billion deal to replace USAF KC-135 fleet.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7272129.stm

[Werner]

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=34207&p=207479#p207479

Apparently, the aircraft is designated KC-45A.

[Tracy White]

Seems the DOD just loves anything that's not Boeing

I'll be really interested to hear what their reasons for the decision are.