Anti 787 Documentary
Discussion
There is some daft crap spoken on here.
The FAA happily haul Boeing over the coals. Been there, done that. They love trying to haul anybody they can over the coals to be honest, some right power jobsworths in the FAA. That is no different from EASA, ESA and the CAA though. Anything safety critical related sends em into a right lather.
Whilst I wouldn't trust any ex (or current for that matter) Boeing employee as far as I could throw them due to the well documented bitterness with moving the company away from Seattle, there are some valid points. The 787 is the only one of my products Ive given negative comments about, to the extent of advising my family not to fly on it for at least the first yr of operations and I certainly wouldn't. A lot of the production engineering on it has been piss poor, driven by schedule/cost overruns and fear over Airbus and the XWB, or the A350 as you lot know it. For what its worth the XWB was a superbly engineered aircraft - I actually worked on the two projects at the same time. Lets just say the quality of the engineering management personnel involved in each project had a lot to do with that. The 787 PM was possibly the most incompetent person I have come across in 20 yrs, whilst the XWB chap was arguably one of the best.
The FAA happily haul Boeing over the coals. Been there, done that. They love trying to haul anybody they can over the coals to be honest, some right power jobsworths in the FAA. That is no different from EASA, ESA and the CAA though. Anything safety critical related sends em into a right lather.
Whilst I wouldn't trust any ex (or current for that matter) Boeing employee as far as I could throw them due to the well documented bitterness with moving the company away from Seattle, there are some valid points. The 787 is the only one of my products Ive given negative comments about, to the extent of advising my family not to fly on it for at least the first yr of operations and I certainly wouldn't. A lot of the production engineering on it has been piss poor, driven by schedule/cost overruns and fear over Airbus and the XWB, or the A350 as you lot know it. For what its worth the XWB was a superbly engineered aircraft - I actually worked on the two projects at the same time. Lets just say the quality of the engineering management personnel involved in each project had a lot to do with that. The 787 PM was possibly the most incompetent person I have come across in 20 yrs, whilst the XWB chap was arguably one of the best.
DJRC said:
The 787 is the only one of my products Ive given negative comments about, to the extent of advising my family not to fly on it for at least the first yr of operations and I certainly wouldn't.
What happens when you turn up at the gate and there's a 787 waiting, do you seriously refuse to get on it?How about the 737? 747? Much worse safety records on both of those aircraft.
The 787 has had a few teething problems, but had it not been for the battery issues there would have been barely a mention of the thing in the press. There have been a few production issues and build quality issues but on the whole they are reliable and save an absolute fortune in fuel costs.
Once the initial problems are ironed out (Boeing are rolling through huge amounts of reliability mods) these will be a superb aircraft.
The Al-Jazeera shockumentary was done in the best tradition of that sort of show, interview a load of disgruntled employees on a "secret" camera then ambush the company spokesman with a load of horses
t questions. It really didn't uncover anything new.I'm looking forward to the A350 to see how it compares, looks like these two aircraft will be the future of longhaul airliners and it's great to see the investment and progress made.
Flew in one last week for 8 hours. Very nice experience - a lot quieter than a normal long haul which makes a hell of a difference, and the air quality was also better.
Not so sure about the internal ambient light display, though I guess it might be good for simulating day/night (along with the ability to centrally control the window opacity) so you get your body clock synced with your destination better.
Not so sure about the internal ambient light display, though I guess it might be good for simulating day/night (along with the ability to centrally control the window opacity) so you get your body clock synced with your destination better.
DJRC said:
The 787 is the only one of my products Ive given negative comments about, to the extent of advising my family not to fly on it for at least the first yr of operations and I certainly wouldn't. A lot of the production engineering on it has been piss poor, driven by schedule/cost overruns and fear over Airbus and the XWB, or the A350 as you lot know it.
So what was the FAA's response when you reported the reasons that the aircraft so dangerous that you would refuse to fly on it?Ok, complete lay person question but...
What bothers me is this battery thing. They've not fixed it, they've just contained it so when the batteries catch fire or explode, they don't bring down the aircraft.
Bad enough, but presumably these batteries do something important, and once they've exploded, even if it is (hopefully!) contained, surely they stop doing whatever it is that is important?
What bothers me is this battery thing. They've not fixed it, they've just contained it so when the batteries catch fire or explode, they don't bring down the aircraft.
Bad enough, but presumably these batteries do something important, and once they've exploded, even if it is (hopefully!) contained, surely they stop doing whatever it is that is important?
Mutley said:
Perik Omo said:
Basically the workers in Carolina reckon it's not safe and the workers are unqualified to be screwing aircraft together, one day flipping burgers and the next working on the Dreamliner. A battery development technician reckons that the battery technology is unsafe for aircraft.
Thanks, so untrained assembly line workers. But how are people supposed to get training? or is it unsupervised??As for betteries, now a known issue already, so not a big reveal. Will have to have a look over the weekend
DJRC said:
The 787 is the only one of my products Ive given negative comments about, to the extent of advising my family not to fly on it for at least the first yr of operations and I certainly wouldn't.
So would not recommend to fly at 364 days, but probably fine to fly at 366 days?Makes perfect sense
JuniorD said:
DJRC said:
The 787 is the only one of my products Ive given negative comments about, to the extent of advising my family not to fly on it for at least the first yr of operations and I certainly wouldn't.
So would not recommend to fly at 364 days, but probably fine to fly at 366 days?Makes perfect sense
I have friends in BA Engineering, who say they are not happy with them (They have 8 at the moment, first arrived June 13). Constantly having issues with the planes with them going tech, and more than once they have had to fly out engineers to work out what is up with them, taking many days to get the aircraft back to LHR.
Boeing has multiple of wiring harness updates, that Boeing are offloading onto the airlines to do, who are not happy as these are takes loads of man hours, and taking a significant time to undertake (with guys who are still learning (hating) the aircraft, and to top it off Boeing changed the 'workshop manual' for the 787, now online, and no longer follows the same logic/standards they have followed since year dot). BA are pretty pissed, and want to send them back to the US for Boeing to fix.
Just have to see here some of issues they have been having.
http://www.thebasource.com/?s=B787-8
Many routes, such as EWR are often running 777's which should be run on a 787 because they are constantly out of action, and they don't have much room to juggle airframes, unlike the 777-200 and 747 fleet (777-300's are in the same boat, used on select long haul routes, which they have 12, but they don't have many tech problems), were they can just pull one from another service and get away with it.
http://ftdashboard.net/dest/ewr.htm
I have flown one 787, it didn't break down, unlike it did for a co worker. But the seating on the 787's in economy is apparently uncomfortable as they have the same number of seats across as a 777, with a thinner fuselage, so the seats are narrower. So regular fliers are avoiding 787's if they have to fly at the back.
Boeing has multiple of wiring harness updates, that Boeing are offloading onto the airlines to do, who are not happy as these are takes loads of man hours, and taking a significant time to undertake (with guys who are still learning (hating) the aircraft, and to top it off Boeing changed the 'workshop manual' for the 787, now online, and no longer follows the same logic/standards they have followed since year dot). BA are pretty pissed, and want to send them back to the US for Boeing to fix.
Just have to see here some of issues they have been having.
http://www.thebasource.com/?s=B787-8
Many routes, such as EWR are often running 777's which should be run on a 787 because they are constantly out of action, and they don't have much room to juggle airframes, unlike the 777-200 and 747 fleet (777-300's are in the same boat, used on select long haul routes, which they have 12, but they don't have many tech problems), were they can just pull one from another service and get away with it.
http://ftdashboard.net/dest/ewr.htm
I have flown one 787, it didn't break down, unlike it did for a co worker. But the seating on the 787's in economy is apparently uncomfortable as they have the same number of seats across as a 777, with a thinner fuselage, so the seats are narrower. So regular fliers are avoiding 787's if they have to fly at the back.
smack said:
I have flown one 787, it didn't break down, unlike it did for a co worker. But the seating on the 787's in economy is apparently uncomfortable as they have the same number of seats across as a 777, with a thinner fuselage, so the seats are narrower. So regular fliers are avoiding 787's if they have to fly at the back.
I heard that a while back but did not believe it?why on earth would they make a new plane with narrower seats than the old one? bit of a fundamental one that...
As a very regular [weekly] air passenger, thankfully none of the aircraft on the routes I'd fly are 787s. At this time it's an aircraft I wouldn't be happy flying on. Nerdy perhaps, but I would always check the aircraft type and actual carrier on a code-share flight. I would not book a flight on a route scheduled for a 787 [nor would I book a route flown by Air France...but that's another matter]. Would I refuse to fly one at the gate of one was substituted? I guess I'd get on but there would be much alcohol consumed...
But as a real-world example, I was looking at travel to UAE and from Edinburgh. Quatar Airways looks a good option via Doha...but EDI-DOH is on a 787. I'd rather take the extra grief of transferring at Heathrow to get on a 777.
My issue is not the batteries but the carbon fibre air-frame. I have done the tour at the Boeing plant in Everett and seen the airframes (or parts of them) up reasonably close and had the evangelising presentation...but I'm not yet convinced. It still seems like a relatively untried technology with no real information on the robustness in years to come.
I guess my problem is that my limited exposure to carbon-fibre/composites has been less than confidence building. I used to windsurf competitively (at a local level) and started with aluminium masts. I had one that I could see was getting more and more 'pitted' with corrosion, and sure enough one day it snapped. l also had an aluminium past pounded in waves and it bent. Then came fibreglass. I broke a few over the years, but only when mashed in waves...but I always reckoned an aluminium mast would have just bent. Then came carbon-fibre and I had one snap [explode more like] in normal use...and I know of other folks where carbon masts just unexpectedly gave-up. I also snapped a couple of carbon fins, whereas I never had a problem with straight-forward plastic fins.
So my limited experience says aluminium bends, and if it breaks then there were signs in advance. Carbon can look 100% fine, and then just give-up.
Now I was also skiing last year at Crystal Mountain in Washington state and got on the same lift as a Boeing engineer. We started talking and I got on to the subject of 787s, and I hoped he'd be the guy to allay my fears. Sadly not...he had some of the same longevity/no obvious sings of damage concerns too. We also got on to the subject of the fuselage section joins. I'd be slightly less concerned if the whole fuselage was a single composite part, but it's a series of 'tubes' jointed together. We're pretty experienced now in joining aluminium, but how are the joins in carbon going to hold up? Again something my engineer on the lift agreed could be a potential issue in years to come. Who knows... But that's really my concern - some years/cycles down the line on a composite airliner..who does know?
But as a real-world example, I was looking at travel to UAE and from Edinburgh. Quatar Airways looks a good option via Doha...but EDI-DOH is on a 787. I'd rather take the extra grief of transferring at Heathrow to get on a 777.
My issue is not the batteries but the carbon fibre air-frame. I have done the tour at the Boeing plant in Everett and seen the airframes (or parts of them) up reasonably close and had the evangelising presentation...but I'm not yet convinced. It still seems like a relatively untried technology with no real information on the robustness in years to come.
I guess my problem is that my limited exposure to carbon-fibre/composites has been less than confidence building. I used to windsurf competitively (at a local level) and started with aluminium masts. I had one that I could see was getting more and more 'pitted' with corrosion, and sure enough one day it snapped. l also had an aluminium past pounded in waves and it bent. Then came fibreglass. I broke a few over the years, but only when mashed in waves...but I always reckoned an aluminium mast would have just bent. Then came carbon-fibre and I had one snap [explode more like] in normal use...and I know of other folks where carbon masts just unexpectedly gave-up. I also snapped a couple of carbon fins, whereas I never had a problem with straight-forward plastic fins.
So my limited experience says aluminium bends, and if it breaks then there were signs in advance. Carbon can look 100% fine, and then just give-up.
Now I was also skiing last year at Crystal Mountain in Washington state and got on the same lift as a Boeing engineer. We started talking and I got on to the subject of 787s, and I hoped he'd be the guy to allay my fears. Sadly not...he had some of the same longevity/no obvious sings of damage concerns too. We also got on to the subject of the fuselage section joins. I'd be slightly less concerned if the whole fuselage was a single composite part, but it's a series of 'tubes' jointed together. We're pretty experienced now in joining aluminium, but how are the joins in carbon going to hold up? Again something my engineer on the lift agreed could be a potential issue in years to come. Who knows... But that's really my concern - some years/cycles down the line on a composite airliner..who does know?
pushthebutton said:
Aircraft interiors are a blank canvas. Boeing will certify a maximum passenger load and that's all. Any complaints about seats, configs etc. should lay squarely at the door of the operating airline.
Seems the 787 was originally 2-2-2 seating for Y classPosted this before:
http://www.businesstraveller.com/opinion/100034/mi...
Actually on Seat Guru BA list all 747/777/787 as 17.5 wide in Y, but I can't talk from experience if it feels less on the 787 thankfully. But the electronic windows are a w
k, as the crew black them out during the day (over riding your control), so you can't look out, making a window seat rather pointless.And the toilets feel like portaloos, with thin plastic doors, that if you fart you are sure everyone can hear you outside within 5m!
I think there's a great deal of ignorant scaremongering going on - by disgruntled unionised current & former Boeing employees and others with limited experience in materials technology.
These composites have been used in aerospace to varying degrees since the '60's - especially in military aircraft.
You only have to look at the story of the Beech Starship to know where the FAA stand. As the first fully composite civilian aircraft certified by the FAA (1988), the FAA were so cautious about the longevity & robustness of the materials used on this scale that it insisted on a level of "over-engineering" which virtually negated most of the the weight savings the materials brought to the project. They sent Raytheon back to the "drawing board" numberous times to beef-up the structures - leading to an increase in the max ramp weight from 12,500 lb (thereby not requiring type rating for operation) to 15,010 (necessitating a type rating.)
Boeing has had genuine issues with its new supply chain for the 787, with some suppliers not meeting quality standards or technical tolerances - but these deficiencies were exposed for what they were & some suppliers lost their contracts & more work was brought in-house or moved to US-based suppliers.
Pardon the pun but "Modern airline safety isn't an accident" - it's safer than driving because of the prioritisation of safety, engineering excellence & training at every level of the industry from the regulatory regime to aircraft design, manufacture, certification, maintenance & operation through to engineering & flight crew training.
How do you know that the guy who just changed the brake pads on your car wasn't flipping burgers a few weeks ago?
These composites have been used in aerospace to varying degrees since the '60's - especially in military aircraft.
You only have to look at the story of the Beech Starship to know where the FAA stand. As the first fully composite civilian aircraft certified by the FAA (1988), the FAA were so cautious about the longevity & robustness of the materials used on this scale that it insisted on a level of "over-engineering" which virtually negated most of the the weight savings the materials brought to the project. They sent Raytheon back to the "drawing board" numberous times to beef-up the structures - leading to an increase in the max ramp weight from 12,500 lb (thereby not requiring type rating for operation) to 15,010 (necessitating a type rating.)
Boeing has had genuine issues with its new supply chain for the 787, with some suppliers not meeting quality standards or technical tolerances - but these deficiencies were exposed for what they were & some suppliers lost their contracts & more work was brought in-house or moved to US-based suppliers.
Pardon the pun but "Modern airline safety isn't an accident" - it's safer than driving because of the prioritisation of safety, engineering excellence & training at every level of the industry from the regulatory regime to aircraft design, manufacture, certification, maintenance & operation through to engineering & flight crew training.
How do you know that the guy who just changed the brake pads on your car wasn't flipping burgers a few weeks ago?
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