Did Boeing Get It Right?

YES!

Not only did they get it right. They got it right despite an anti business administration. Despite corrupt unions. Despite everything...............THEY DID IT!!!

WE DID IT!! Not just the US, but the UK. Rolls-Royce engines. HELL YES!!!

THIS IS THE BEST AIRPLANE EVER CREATED!!!!

The news of our demise has been vastly exaggerated.

_{I hope.}

Arthur Koestler famously said that "If the creator had a purpose in equipping us with a neck, he surely meant us to stick it out."

Boeing team has done America proud by creating 787 Dream Liner by sticking their neck out and has come out with a daring design successfully baptized under fire .

I have little doubt that 787 will be creating a bench mark just as T Model Ford and Douglas DC3 Dakota aircraft did earlier.

They thought of everything. It actually makes me want to fly somewhere.

Just like iConic Steve Jobs, the team Boeing is sending out strong signals of the core strength of America.

Knowledgeable people are certain despite great difficulties America, because of its core strength, will rise like the mythical Phoenix from the ashes.

This is not something that can be assumed. Thanks for your support, but I have no intention of rising from the ashes.

If our government can't do it, then the American people will. We have no interest in leading anyone. We just want to live. Just like you. In Freedom.

The masses will ultimately determine the fate of humanity. Not the elected officials.

Ask the Romans

yep, Boeing stuck their neck out..................again

I still prefer metal over composite. I will fly 747 until I have no choice.

No hard feelings. I'm a little biased. I just saw a documentary on this plane a couple of weeks ago. History Channel, Discovery, or something...........I can't remember. (BTW 71 isn't necessarily old).

Anyway, they subjected this beast to extremes that would never occur in real life. I'll put up links if you want me to.

It's an incredible machine!!!

Beautiful too.

Every person...................and country, that was involved has reason to be very proud.

Please put up the links.

Sure:

http://www.boeing.com/commercial/787family/news/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvEMgmirldc&feature=related

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_787_Dreamliner

There's more. You'll see in the wiki article that the tail section is not made from composite, but aluminum.

Mixed metaphors. Do you mean the MD-10/11 ? Or do you mean the Lockheed L-1011 ? Initially similar looking aircraft - tri-jet.

In my opinion the Lockheed product was better, but it broke the company.

The DC-10 had been in production over a year before the first L-1011 rolled off the Palmdale California production line. Lockheed was unable to make up the ground they had lost to McDonnell - 9 years - in providing a longer ranged aircraft!

Lockheed initially estimated they needed to produce 300 aircraft to break even, the figure actually proved to be about 500 - but they only built 250. In the end Lockheed lost US$2.5 billion on the TriStar project and the experience buried them in commercial aerospace. They stopped commercial airliner manufacture in December 1981.

There's not many 747-8i's on order. Still fewer 747-400ER's built (Qantas has them !).

An update to my 747-8 post.

During the first day of the 2011 Paris air show Boeing has pulled in 50 firm and five conditional orders for the passenger version, With 17 fresh orders for the 747-8 Intercontinental, in addition to some 70 orders for the 747-8 windowless freighter. IE 55 passenger (-8i's) and 76 freight (747-8).

I hope it works out for them. Of course we won't know for sure for another decade, but after looking at the testing that was done, (I'm sure the tests that I saw on line were a very small percentage of the actual tests), I feel confident that they will perform as promised.

Boeing have a long history of making gutsy decisions that have ultimately paid off big time. I would hazard to say that going by past performance there's a pretty good chance that they've got it right again.

All those stress wrinkles in the old metal ones always give me the shivers while looking at them out through the terminal glass. I keep wondering if this time is it's last time...

I sincerely hope that they did but it is too early to make sweeping statements. The Model T and the Dakota have the advantage of history so we can see the influence they have had.

The Dreamliner has just entered service. There is a lot of experience of composites in military jets, but none come close to this size. Ten years of flying will tell us the fatigue life, and if it does not stand up, Boeing has produced a dud. Rolls went bust in the 90's with massive overspend on developing the RB211, which later proved to be one of the best aero engines ever built. Delays and overspend in developing a product have little correlation to it's future success. After ten years we will know how reliable the new engine design is.

It is just a pity that the first planes in service are for Nippon Airways, not an American or British carrier.

Why? ANA has always been one very good customer of Boeing's.

Your a real gambler are you not?

Rolls went bust on the 4th February 1971 due to under estimating the development costs of the RB-211 tri-spool engine.

I think Boeing may have got it right on design criteria and probably design execution, and the plane looks great. It remains to be seen whether composites have the kind of usable life metal aircraft have had.

I still have serious doubts about the supply chain they established, though. Remember that some of the major delays were due to supplier issues. Assembly is taking place in Washington and - maybe soon - South Carolina, but huge composite components like the wings and wing box are made overseas. I am still surprised Boeing did not retain more control over such critical components and I expect to hear about more delivery delays due to supplier problems in the future.

Any aircraft that can handle crosswind landings as easily as this definitely gets my vote of approval.

Nice. I feel quite confident that no one is going to be reverse engineering and duplicating this plane any time soon.

Another tiny test.

I am with Phaddy, I seem to remember when the plastic tail or rudder fell off a jet over NYC. Plastics are fine in some situations, but it does not seem wise to use them as structural aircraft parts. Jets fabricated of metal have been in service for 20 years and we see large scale airframe failures due to stress and corrosion. These newer planes will likely be in service for much longer. With this new type of construction, I don't think we know what we do not know.

Man............I thought I was cynical.

{edit}

You may be right. I found an expert.

And once upon a time wings were spruce and covered with canvas

We learned how to handle flying aluminum by flying aluminum.

Composites have been flying for years and years, carbon composites for years; we have made mistakes and corrected them.

Commendably explained!

The importance of carrying people by allying their concern on high tech areas hardly need to be emphasized.

With the Euro in meltdown and the Dollar under severe pressure from the US balance of payments, major changes to the air traffic control system in the foreseeable future are not on anybodies agenda. Boeing conceived the Dreamliner prior to the financial crisis, and the changes you describe were being discussed at that time.

All very long term projects rely on assumptions about the future. Boeing now has to to convince airlines that Dreamliner is substantially cheaper to operate than Airbus alternatives, and hope that China or India do not develope their own civil aircraft industries within the next 15 years.

Dreamliner wins on fuel costs but loses out on passenger capacity. Maintenance costs will swing the balance and as yet these are unproven.

China has a big military aircraft industry and too many military aircraft for it's current needs. They will have to do something about this spare capacity.

I think the level of comfort on this plane should be mentioned too. Part of the reason I hate flying is because I feel like I'm climbing aboard a cramped, stuffy, dirty, city bus.

The list of things they've done to make the whole experience more comfortable is pretty impressive too.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-1295886/Boeings-787-Dreamliner-promises-make-jetlag-air-sickness-thing-past.html

Despite the economy we (he says looking over the fence into the neighbor's yard) have hit a point of converging technologies that I think is going to drive free-flight.

Manpower for traditional air traffic control is going exponential.

Technology for ground-based and air-based conflict detection is maturing.

Massive funding pouring into drone use is driving desire for drone operation within the US national airspace, which requires the second above.

Successful experiments in Australia and in the Alaskan FIRs with GPS based ADS sourced tracking are paying off.

Recent divergence in technology adoption on the part of the FAA has put US carriers increasingly at odds with European airspace.

All of these have converged to bring funds to the FAA to reinvigorate the early work into FANS / Free-Flight / CNS/ATM (pick an acronym appropriate to your entry into this work).

I also think a generational change has shifted the FAA's thinking on these subjects. A decade of experience with GPS navigation has proven the military isn't going to just turn it off, and the aircraft are equipped to handle it if they ever did.

Now if Congress will quit rushing to sell off our spectrum haphazardly (see LightSquared and GPS).

Great work masu.

Thanks to you and masu for high quality contributions.

Regarding China or India developing civil aircraft, I can assert with confidence that India definitely is in no position to be a significant player in the near future, but China is going hammer and tong to develop Boeing 737 type aircraft, how successfully only time will tell..

I hope so.

Way to soon to tell. Boeing's ROI won't be known for at least 10 more years at the earliest when the history of retrofits and design revisions are known and the extent, if any, of FAA mandated Airworthiness Directives are studied.

AirBus' introductions proved premature and may prove to be it's undoing.

Catastrophic rudder failures and bulkhead failures on aileron servos have caused a lot of litigation and bad press.

I'd sooner be over budget and behind on delivery than defending myself in court.

L. J.

Different strokes for different folk

Different planes for different purposes.

All of these very new designs where many items are highly advanced are a risk because they enter unknown territory, I remember when the Comet was considered a "Wonderful" plane and a great advance until it crashed into the Mediterranean. There have been others.