At least something has gone well. The Seattle newspapers report that the drop test successfully vaidated the computer model.
See: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/642 ... _Test.html
and
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/b ... ing06.html
Boeing 787 - How late?
Moderator: Latest news team
Emirates' Clark: 787 delay inevitable but insignificant
"It would have been a miracle for Boeing to have flown the 787 on time," Emirates President Tim Clark said, adding that the delay would not be a factor in the airline's evaluation of the 787 and A350 for an order for 100 aircraft.
He also is bullish that the company will get the 747-8I right for the Emirates range specification. "They're not quite there yet but they are much, much closer than they were six months ago," he said
http://www.atwonline.com/news/story.html?storyID=10156
"It would have been a miracle for Boeing to have flown the 787 on time," Emirates President Tim Clark said, adding that the delay would not be a factor in the airline's evaluation of the 787 and A350 for an order for 100 aircraft.
He also is bullish that the company will get the 747-8I right for the Emirates range specification. "They're not quite there yet but they are much, much closer than they were six months ago," he said
http://www.atwonline.com/news/story.html?storyID=10156
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smokejumper
- Posts: 1033
- Joined: 21 Oct 2005, 00:00
- Location: Northern Virginia USA
And the beat goes on! More on 787 delay in Aviation Week.
Unfortunately, I can not paste the link, so "Google" Aviation Week or go to "www.Aviationweek.com". The September 9 article describes the issue and its' current status.
Unfortunately, I can not paste the link, so "Google" Aviation Week or go to "www.Aviationweek.com". The September 9 article describes the issue and its' current status.
smokejumper wrote:And the beat goes on! More on 787 delay in Aviation Week.
Unfortunately, I can not paste the link, so "Google" Aviation Week or go to "www.Aviationweek.com". The September 9 article describes the issue and its' current status.
Boeing Faces 'Pretty Tight' 787 Delivery ScheduleAfter years of hesitation and one false start on new wide-body designs, Boeing set the most aggressive development program in its history for the 787. The company’s acknowledgment that it must suffer at least a three-month delay for its first flight and compress the airplane’s delivery schedule to as few as five months—an unprecedented pace—just to keep on track means the heat is really on.
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/ ... annel=comm
article of Aviation Week
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/
Boeing Faces 'Pretty Tight' 787 Delivery Schedule
Sep 9, 2007
By Michael Mecham
After years of hesitation and one false start on new wide-body designs, Boeing set the most aggressive development program in its history for the 787. The company’s acknowledgment that it must suffer at least a three-month delay for its first flight and compress the airplane’s delivery schedule to as few as five months—an unprecedented pace—just to keep on track means the heat is really on.
Originally set for late August, first flight will now take place no earlier than mid-November and could slip to mid-December. Boeing vows that delivery to launch customer All Nippon Airways will take place, as scheduled, in late May 2008, although at least one major investor is skeptical and thinks that could slip by another 3-4 months. When the 200-300-seat twinjet rolled out in July, Boeing’s managers said they would need just eight months to complete flight-testing for certification, a noteworthy assertion considering they took 11 months to certify their last all-new product, the 777, and 10.5 months to certify the 777-900ER, the last time they updated an existing model.
So they’ve raised the bar, but as calamitous as the situation sounds, Wall Street shrugged off the news. Boeing’s stock actually rose last week when the slip was announced and its customers remain sanguine (see p. 11). “Boeing has been very open with us and timely in how they made us aware of the situation,” an ANA official says. The airline is not “overly concerned, as Boeing is still confident of delivering the aircraft to us on time.”
The 787s replace ANA’s 767 fleet, which is healthy. So while ANA wants delivery on time, it could absorb a minor slip without upsetting its business plan.
That sentiment is shared by others. A Singapore Airlines official says delays “are not uncommon with new aircraft,” a fact SIA understands well since it was the first to take a two-year hit in the Airbus A380’s delivery schedule.
Scott Carson, president and CEO of Boeing’s aircraft unit, won’t comment on what penalties Boeing might suffer for late shipments. But “a 1-3-month delay scenario would have minimal financial implications for 2008,” he assures analysts.
And for his part, Vice President and 787 Program Manager Mike Bair insists the current first flight window will hold. “We don’t see a high probability, or even a low probability, of [first flight] moving” past the end of the year, he says.
Two facts comfort analysts: Boeing’s woes stem not from deficiencies in the 787’s design, development or production strategy, but from parts shortages and factory floor execution. And, while first flight gets a lot of visibility, the bigger issue for the manufacturer is whether it can meet its long-term delivery promises. Boeing says it will make 112 deliveries by the end of 2009, as promised.
Inevitably, Boeing’s difficulties will be compared to Airbus’s two-year delay on the A380. But that might not be instructive. Boeing’s problems are with its supplier base; Airbus’s were mainly internal. Faced with a wiring mess, Airbus had to revise its production system; Boeing insists its production system is healthy and its parts and assemblies of high quality.
But Airbus also delayed dealing with what turned out to be a systemic production issue as it focused on first delivery. That didn’t work and probably exacerbated its recovery. Boeing is accepting risk by pressing ahead with only minor concessions—it has scrambled the next delivery of a flight-test aircraft in favor of a static test model that is easier to build—to give its supply chain time to catch its breath.
Even though she predicts first delivery could be up to three months late, Morgan Stanley Analyst Heidi Wood says the 787 is still too hot to ignore. “This plane is the aerospace equivalent of the iPod, and [Boeing] has at least a five-year lead on the competition.”
Aeroflot’s formal signing for 20 aircraft as the delay was announced boosts total orders to 706 from 48 customers, including 258 orders taken this year—both records. At that pace, Wood predicts, the aircraft is likely to reach 1,000 sales in six months.
The 787 has been a big splash since the first announcement in December 2003. As a replacement for the Sonic Cruiser idea, it offered the fuel and operating efficiency airlines sought. It also brought forth an engine design that Boeing adapted to the 747 to finally, after a decade of promises, get that program’s update off the ground.
To build the 787, Boeing shifted to the biggest global supply network in the industry. Airframe assemblies are to flow into the final assembly line at Boeing’s Everett, Wash., wide-body headquarters from factories in Italy, South Carolina, Kansas, Australia and Japan. The fuselage assemblies are to come “pre-stuffed” with wiring, hydraulic lines and systems connections to speed completion of the whole structure. This strategy has required a huge push by Boeing and its suppliers. It was probably inevitable that it wasn’t the big things—the assemblies themselves—that mucked up the process, but small ones, particularly fasteners.
Supply chain headaches were already apparent when the 787 rolled out in July, but Boeing’s managers said they knew what to do. “We are experts at expediting parts and we are expediting a lot of parts right now,” Bair said then.
However, hints that problems were persistent began to emerge. In a recent earnings call, Boeing CEO James McNerney commented that Boeing had a contingency plan if first flight slipped beyond the August-September window into October. Now that the slip is even greater, Carson says it is that plan that Boeing is relying on.
What happened? Bair says the focus was on “the structure and stuff, not on systems installation” as the 787 team pushed to rollout. “So it wasn’t until well after rollout when we started figuring out what we had in terms of systems installation and what we had to do—until we got a handle on how complicated this was going to be in the factory,” he says. It’s been a steep learning curve, but not a failure of process or Boeing’s assembly strategy, Bair insists.
Although greatly compressed, the flight-test schedule will work by eating into the “back-end buffer” of the original one. But that means accepting a lot of risk. “As this gets more and more compressed, we’re just eliminating time that we might have had to deal with anything that’s unexpected,” Bair acknowledges. “But in terms of the amount of time we have to do the program, it’s still pretty much within the window that we had initially planned.”
Where the 777 flew 70-80 hr. a month, the 787 will push 120 hr. or more. “It means we’re essentially going to be running an airline, 24 hr. a day, 7 days a week,” he says.
Certification will focus on the first four flight-test aircraft, all Rolls-Royce powered, because ANA is using Rolls-Royce’s Trent 1000. Certifying General Electric’s GEnx engine will slip.
The same two culprits the company acknowledged in July are providing its headaches now. First is travel work, the detailed tasks on assemblies supposed to be completed by subcontractors that end up on Boeing’s final assembly line in Everett. Secondly, systems delays, particularly with software for the 787’s flight control system, still must be overcome, after months of struggle (AW&ST July 16, p. 26). Part of the software issue has been its size: at 6.5 million lines of code, the 787 has three times as much as the 777.
“We pushed really hard to complete coding of our flight system software [with Honeywell] in August, but [it] is now slated for completion and delivery later this month,” Bair says.
The travel work is dominated by fastener issues, especially in the composite wing box and center wing box. The fault lies not with their manufacturers, but with a “global fastener shortage,” Bair says.
In July, Boeing executives were talking about having to replace “about 1,000” temporary fasteners used to hold the first test article, ZA001, in place for the rollout ceremony. Now they say “thousands” are involved. As of Sept. 4, more than 700 were still awaiting replacement.
To its surprise, Boeing discovered the documentation necessary to support work completed by suppliers before shipment wasn’t matching the work remaining to be completed in Everett.
On the 787, Boeing’s use of computer-aided design, manufacturing and supply-chain management software from Dassault Systemes is the most extensive of any commercial jet (AW&ST Jan. 1, p. 54). But the system failed to spot the fastener mess because Boeing didn’t see it coming and didn’t plan for it. As a result, unscrambling the fastener jumble has turned into an old-fashioned paper chase to assure Boeing has proper documentation for the certification process. Boeing employs as many people on documentation as it does to actually build the 787.
To ease the burden on suppliers, Boeing is resequencing their work schedule. “It will take probably 10-20 units before we get all the work resequenced, but it gives us a much more controlled look at what comes into the factory, and it’s much more predictable with the way we’ve got it set up now,” says Bair.
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/
Boeing Faces 'Pretty Tight' 787 Delivery Schedule
Sep 9, 2007
By Michael Mecham
After years of hesitation and one false start on new wide-body designs, Boeing set the most aggressive development program in its history for the 787. The company’s acknowledgment that it must suffer at least a three-month delay for its first flight and compress the airplane’s delivery schedule to as few as five months—an unprecedented pace—just to keep on track means the heat is really on.
Originally set for late August, first flight will now take place no earlier than mid-November and could slip to mid-December. Boeing vows that delivery to launch customer All Nippon Airways will take place, as scheduled, in late May 2008, although at least one major investor is skeptical and thinks that could slip by another 3-4 months. When the 200-300-seat twinjet rolled out in July, Boeing’s managers said they would need just eight months to complete flight-testing for certification, a noteworthy assertion considering they took 11 months to certify their last all-new product, the 777, and 10.5 months to certify the 777-900ER, the last time they updated an existing model.
So they’ve raised the bar, but as calamitous as the situation sounds, Wall Street shrugged off the news. Boeing’s stock actually rose last week when the slip was announced and its customers remain sanguine (see p. 11). “Boeing has been very open with us and timely in how they made us aware of the situation,” an ANA official says. The airline is not “overly concerned, as Boeing is still confident of delivering the aircraft to us on time.”
The 787s replace ANA’s 767 fleet, which is healthy. So while ANA wants delivery on time, it could absorb a minor slip without upsetting its business plan.
That sentiment is shared by others. A Singapore Airlines official says delays “are not uncommon with new aircraft,” a fact SIA understands well since it was the first to take a two-year hit in the Airbus A380’s delivery schedule.
Scott Carson, president and CEO of Boeing’s aircraft unit, won’t comment on what penalties Boeing might suffer for late shipments. But “a 1-3-month delay scenario would have minimal financial implications for 2008,” he assures analysts.
And for his part, Vice President and 787 Program Manager Mike Bair insists the current first flight window will hold. “We don’t see a high probability, or even a low probability, of [first flight] moving” past the end of the year, he says.
Two facts comfort analysts: Boeing’s woes stem not from deficiencies in the 787’s design, development or production strategy, but from parts shortages and factory floor execution. And, while first flight gets a lot of visibility, the bigger issue for the manufacturer is whether it can meet its long-term delivery promises. Boeing says it will make 112 deliveries by the end of 2009, as promised.
Inevitably, Boeing’s difficulties will be compared to Airbus’s two-year delay on the A380. But that might not be instructive. Boeing’s problems are with its supplier base; Airbus’s were mainly internal. Faced with a wiring mess, Airbus had to revise its production system; Boeing insists its production system is healthy and its parts and assemblies of high quality.
But Airbus also delayed dealing with what turned out to be a systemic production issue as it focused on first delivery. That didn’t work and probably exacerbated its recovery. Boeing is accepting risk by pressing ahead with only minor concessions—it has scrambled the next delivery of a flight-test aircraft in favor of a static test model that is easier to build—to give its supply chain time to catch its breath.
Even though she predicts first delivery could be up to three months late, Morgan Stanley Analyst Heidi Wood says the 787 is still too hot to ignore. “This plane is the aerospace equivalent of the iPod, and [Boeing] has at least a five-year lead on the competition.”
Aeroflot’s formal signing for 20 aircraft as the delay was announced boosts total orders to 706 from 48 customers, including 258 orders taken this year—both records. At that pace, Wood predicts, the aircraft is likely to reach 1,000 sales in six months.
The 787 has been a big splash since the first announcement in December 2003. As a replacement for the Sonic Cruiser idea, it offered the fuel and operating efficiency airlines sought. It also brought forth an engine design that Boeing adapted to the 747 to finally, after a decade of promises, get that program’s update off the ground.
To build the 787, Boeing shifted to the biggest global supply network in the industry. Airframe assemblies are to flow into the final assembly line at Boeing’s Everett, Wash., wide-body headquarters from factories in Italy, South Carolina, Kansas, Australia and Japan. The fuselage assemblies are to come “pre-stuffed” with wiring, hydraulic lines and systems connections to speed completion of the whole structure. This strategy has required a huge push by Boeing and its suppliers. It was probably inevitable that it wasn’t the big things—the assemblies themselves—that mucked up the process, but small ones, particularly fasteners.
Supply chain headaches were already apparent when the 787 rolled out in July, but Boeing’s managers said they knew what to do. “We are experts at expediting parts and we are expediting a lot of parts right now,” Bair said then.
However, hints that problems were persistent began to emerge. In a recent earnings call, Boeing CEO James McNerney commented that Boeing had a contingency plan if first flight slipped beyond the August-September window into October. Now that the slip is even greater, Carson says it is that plan that Boeing is relying on.
What happened? Bair says the focus was on “the structure and stuff, not on systems installation” as the 787 team pushed to rollout. “So it wasn’t until well after rollout when we started figuring out what we had in terms of systems installation and what we had to do—until we got a handle on how complicated this was going to be in the factory,” he says. It’s been a steep learning curve, but not a failure of process or Boeing’s assembly strategy, Bair insists.
Although greatly compressed, the flight-test schedule will work by eating into the “back-end buffer” of the original one. But that means accepting a lot of risk. “As this gets more and more compressed, we’re just eliminating time that we might have had to deal with anything that’s unexpected,” Bair acknowledges. “But in terms of the amount of time we have to do the program, it’s still pretty much within the window that we had initially planned.”
Where the 777 flew 70-80 hr. a month, the 787 will push 120 hr. or more. “It means we’re essentially going to be running an airline, 24 hr. a day, 7 days a week,” he says.
Certification will focus on the first four flight-test aircraft, all Rolls-Royce powered, because ANA is using Rolls-Royce’s Trent 1000. Certifying General Electric’s GEnx engine will slip.
The same two culprits the company acknowledged in July are providing its headaches now. First is travel work, the detailed tasks on assemblies supposed to be completed by subcontractors that end up on Boeing’s final assembly line in Everett. Secondly, systems delays, particularly with software for the 787’s flight control system, still must be overcome, after months of struggle (AW&ST July 16, p. 26). Part of the software issue has been its size: at 6.5 million lines of code, the 787 has three times as much as the 777.
“We pushed really hard to complete coding of our flight system software [with Honeywell] in August, but [it] is now slated for completion and delivery later this month,” Bair says.
The travel work is dominated by fastener issues, especially in the composite wing box and center wing box. The fault lies not with their manufacturers, but with a “global fastener shortage,” Bair says.
In July, Boeing executives were talking about having to replace “about 1,000” temporary fasteners used to hold the first test article, ZA001, in place for the rollout ceremony. Now they say “thousands” are involved. As of Sept. 4, more than 700 were still awaiting replacement.
To its surprise, Boeing discovered the documentation necessary to support work completed by suppliers before shipment wasn’t matching the work remaining to be completed in Everett.
On the 787, Boeing’s use of computer-aided design, manufacturing and supply-chain management software from Dassault Systemes is the most extensive of any commercial jet (AW&ST Jan. 1, p. 54). But the system failed to spot the fastener mess because Boeing didn’t see it coming and didn’t plan for it. As a result, unscrambling the fastener jumble has turned into an old-fashioned paper chase to assure Boeing has proper documentation for the certification process. Boeing employs as many people on documentation as it does to actually build the 787.
To ease the burden on suppliers, Boeing is resequencing their work schedule. “It will take probably 10-20 units before we get all the work resequenced, but it gives us a much more controlled look at what comes into the factory, and it’s much more predictable with the way we’ve got it set up now,” says Bair.
Definitely one of the better articles about the 787 delivery issues.
After reading that and Emirates Clark statement that it is not a big issue, I wonder if Boeing really needed to be so coy about where they are at.
The main point is that it will be a great airplane, and apparantly almost everyone expects a few glitches except Boeing.
I dont think anyone would have turned a hair had they simply added the first flight delay on to the first EIS date. Would definitely have avoided an upcoming loss of face.
Cheers
Achace
After reading that and Emirates Clark statement that it is not a big issue, I wonder if Boeing really needed to be so coy about where they are at.
The main point is that it will be a great airplane, and apparantly almost everyone expects a few glitches except Boeing.
I dont think anyone would have turned a hair had they simply added the first flight delay on to the first EIS date. Would definitely have avoided an upcoming loss of face.
Cheers
Achace
Mike Bair, Boeing's vice-president and general manager for 787, notes that more buffer could be added by eliminating flight tests, but that's "not something we want to do".
The above is a quote extracted from Flight International.
Can anyone suggest what flight tests could be eliminated from a certification programme please?
Cheers
Achace
The above is a quote extracted from Flight International.
Can anyone suggest what flight tests could be eliminated from a certification programme please?
Cheers
Achace
I continue to ponder the situation, and right now the best word seems to be disappointed. I think they are seeing some of the spread to thin problems (the 737 slat bolt problem looks to be a factory screw up).
Something else that I have come across is that ANA is fine with the situation. The quote was something to the affect that Boeing has kept us fully informed and we are not disappointed.
There is no doubt that there will be some delivery delay. The nice part for Boeing is that ANA is not critical for the aircraft, they want it, but what they have is new enough not to be a crisis issue. I would guess N.W. is desperate, as they are flying DC10s still. They never made the transition to interim aircraft, and that is a very costly decision in the fuel price climate everyone is in.
What’s bizarre to me is that the basic issue keeps coming back to the fasteners. How in the world did they loose track of that?
Its pretty simple, you need so many of fastener X, so many of Z, so many of Y. You order those and you get less than you ordered. You can’t put the thing together. You raise the flag, holler, let someone know.
One comment was that the software was not programmed to spot that. That spurious at best and nonsense at the worst. If it can’t spot a simple shortage issue, its useless. Something is bogus here.
Did someone lie to them (Boeing)? Again reportedly the biggest issues fastener wise is the wings, and I know the Japanese really are loath to admit they can’t do something (or make something you gave them better).
So now they are juggling and putting the static test airframe up front, moving the flying birds further back while they catch up with the fasteners (and the wiring completion issue on the assemblies.
The flight software frankly is not a big deal. If you can get the bird together, you can do the power up and start system tests, do the taxi runs and test the systems while doing so. Maybe not the most efficient, but you make needed progress.
It does look like Boeing is biting the bullet now and regrouping rather than limp along robbing peter and hoping it works out somehow.
Has all the management changes in the last year contributed to it. Mullaly left, others retired after getting it this far. Too many young guys who thing computers are an answer and a solution in of themselves and not another tool that needs a brain to make sure it is not so many empty power point presentations?
I do think the program is ok, its come a lot further without some temporary show stopping issues (and I was expecting some). It seems there is more to this story than we are being told. On the flip side, it’s the buyers who are owed the explanations, and those seem to be ok. ANA was up front and public in complaining about weight (rightfully so) , they are ok with what’s going on.
I want to see it fly. Until it does, you really don’t know what you have. I don’t say fly it regardless (and they won’t) but you really don’t know how it works and the issues until its flying as a system, and it’s a complex system with virtually everything new (the cockpit electronics are probably the most proven, but those have changes as well.). There are going to be a fair amount of glitches. Not unsolvable, but there’s going to be a number or, ooops, we missed that. Glitches, not structural failures.
Something else that I have come across is that ANA is fine with the situation. The quote was something to the affect that Boeing has kept us fully informed and we are not disappointed.
There is no doubt that there will be some delivery delay. The nice part for Boeing is that ANA is not critical for the aircraft, they want it, but what they have is new enough not to be a crisis issue. I would guess N.W. is desperate, as they are flying DC10s still. They never made the transition to interim aircraft, and that is a very costly decision in the fuel price climate everyone is in.
What’s bizarre to me is that the basic issue keeps coming back to the fasteners. How in the world did they loose track of that?
Its pretty simple, you need so many of fastener X, so many of Z, so many of Y. You order those and you get less than you ordered. You can’t put the thing together. You raise the flag, holler, let someone know.
One comment was that the software was not programmed to spot that. That spurious at best and nonsense at the worst. If it can’t spot a simple shortage issue, its useless. Something is bogus here.
Did someone lie to them (Boeing)? Again reportedly the biggest issues fastener wise is the wings, and I know the Japanese really are loath to admit they can’t do something (or make something you gave them better).
So now they are juggling and putting the static test airframe up front, moving the flying birds further back while they catch up with the fasteners (and the wiring completion issue on the assemblies.
The flight software frankly is not a big deal. If you can get the bird together, you can do the power up and start system tests, do the taxi runs and test the systems while doing so. Maybe not the most efficient, but you make needed progress.
It does look like Boeing is biting the bullet now and regrouping rather than limp along robbing peter and hoping it works out somehow.
Has all the management changes in the last year contributed to it. Mullaly left, others retired after getting it this far. Too many young guys who thing computers are an answer and a solution in of themselves and not another tool that needs a brain to make sure it is not so many empty power point presentations?
I do think the program is ok, its come a lot further without some temporary show stopping issues (and I was expecting some). It seems there is more to this story than we are being told. On the flip side, it’s the buyers who are owed the explanations, and those seem to be ok. ANA was up front and public in complaining about weight (rightfully so) , they are ok with what’s going on.
I want to see it fly. Until it does, you really don’t know what you have. I don’t say fly it regardless (and they won’t) but you really don’t know how it works and the issues until its flying as a system, and it’s a complex system with virtually everything new (the cockpit electronics are probably the most proven, but those have changes as well.). There are going to be a fair amount of glitches. Not unsolvable, but there’s going to be a number or, ooops, we missed that. Glitches, not structural failures.
It is always easy to blame someone else, and in the case of the fasteners my thoughts are that by the time the design was sufficiently advanced, the ordering process left insufficient time for the suppliers to meet deadlines.
Remember the fastener issue affected not just final assembly, but Japan and Italy sent sub sections with temporary fasteners.
Probably, new technology has been involved and many fasteners had to be of a special design, not Ace Hardware products.
The software issue also comes down to design leadtime, as Honeywell only got the final information a few weeks ago.
Its all going to happen, but we have to be patient.
Cheers
Achace
Remember the fastener issue affected not just final assembly, but Japan and Italy sent sub sections with temporary fasteners.
Probably, new technology has been involved and many fasteners had to be of a special design, not Ace Hardware products.
The software issue also comes down to design leadtime, as Honeywell only got the final information a few weeks ago.
Its all going to happen, but we have to be patient.
Cheers
Achace
According to Boeing first flight should be on time! mmmmmmmmmmm we'll see.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/47334-b ... er-on-time
http://seekingalpha.com/article/47334-b ... er-on-time
There are no strangers in the world, just friends we have yet to meet.
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Gliderpilot
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