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Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
08/27/09
08/27/09
That's pretty much how it works right? I wish they were a bit more open and honest about the delays, but at least they aren't willing to put a product into production with known design flaws.
Last I knew the A380 was still having major electrical issues.
08/27/09
I also believe that while setting a release date is a good thing internally to give everyone a definate deadline, people really, really need to stop telling them to the public before they've determined if it's a realistic goal.
Man I phail at teh speelingz.
08/27/09
08/27/09
Making planes out metal is well understood. The issues and risks are know. What Boeing is doing here -and which they admit has inherent flaws- is throwing away all that knowledge in favor of a whole new way. That's nice. But lives are at stake.
08/27/09
08/27/09
08/17/09
08/17/09
08/17/09
I've worked with composites in the aerospace industry now for a few years, and I agree that these "wrinkles" do not reflect Boeing in any way, it reflects the work of the SUB sub contractor in Italy. For those of you who do not know how these panels are made, its a layering process using resin, sealers and carbon fiber weave which is done over a mold, and then put in an autoclave. Very skilled composite workers are needed to produce flawless parts, be it a fuselage panel or a steering wheel, and not every company has the luxury of quality workers producing the quality parts the 787 demands.
These wrinkles would hardly be a structural weakness, due to the slight flex that any carbon fiber panel would have. The reason the 787 is being made almost entirely from composites is so they can dramatically reduce fuel consumption, and these wrinkles would negate millions of dollars of research by increasing drag, if they were to be present along the whole fuselage. They most certainly would not cause a "drop-out-of-the-frickin'-sky" failure. Don't scare people like that just because you read it in a newspaper!
My view on the 787 is that it is a wonder of engineering, that is desperately needed to help with global warming, and our dependency on foreign oil. Who cares if its delayed by years, so is every other plan being developed right now, including the airbus a350.
08/17/09
Delays hurt THEM, but fixing problems that could potentially make you fall down and go dead helps US in the form of us arriving at our destination.
08/17/09
08/16/09
Although I am not an expert in composites I do believe the wrinkles they are talking about are minor. I've seen them and Boeing wants to stress to Alenia how important it is to fix this problem. The skin on this aircraft is super strong. I am serious. It is very thick and very strong where needed and will last a long time. I'd fly in one with the wrinkles any day. The wrinkles affect the appearance more than anything else.
I am serious, the fuselage wrinkles are very minor.
I remember the skin of the B-52 bomber would have huge wrinkles in it all over the place.
08/17/09
By the way Jack where is your engineering degree from exactly?
Seriously get a grip....take a train...well unless you read an article about the cracks in the high speed rail line tracks...then we can listen to you over react to that I guess?
08/17/09
This is further true because the aircraft companies are really having a hard time in the current economy with a president who doesn't support the industry much (no offense to him), and a move like this only loses them further money, so they would only make such a risky choice if they knew there were worse consequences if they didn't delay. Such things are also determined through rigorous stress tests, involving everything to high pressures to tension, compression, and cyclic (or lifetime) loading. When is the last time anyone saw a pressurized N2 tank that had wrinkles in it? There's a reason you don't.
But worse, these are pressurized cylinders with folks inside, and every engineer is taught that the human factor is the most important. If a failure in design costs human lives, then the designer is not a good engineer, and *every* expense is afforded to make sure safety is maintained.
08/17/09
Makes for a great headline though (click click click)
08/16/09
The 787 takes long to complete, but it will always be needed unless some new technology appears that makes all current airliners obsolete.
Second, I don't recall any mentions of structural failures during testing of the Spruce Goose, at least not for these issues to be of the reasons for the project taking so long.
And thirdly, the HH4 Hercules was an aircraft far more complex and more revolutionary, for its time, than the 787 is in our time. Yes, it was also a composite aircraft (wood can be considered a composite), but it was also the 40s equivalent of the Antonov 226...which the 787 is definitely not!
08/17/09
08/17/09
08/17/09
08/16/09
08/16/09
08/16/09
But seriously... shit... can't we do anything right in this country any more? We're fucking uo so badly you wonder how we ever got to where we are in the first place.
08/16/09
08/17/09
08/17/09
Finding problems and fixing them prior to a product being produced is not doing things right. -hello?
Your observations are incorrect and your assumptions are as well.
07/31/09
07/30/09
07/30/09