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Just released:

SPEEA and Boeing reach tentative agreement on new contracts

SEATTLE
– Tentative agreement was reached today between the Society of
Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA), IFPTE Local
2001, and Boeing on new four-year contracts covering 21,000 engineers
and technical workers.

The two
sides reached agreement early Friday. Union negotiators are
recommending members approve the agreements. If approved by union
members, the agreements will replace existing contracts that expire
Dec. 1.

Two contracts are involved in the negotiations. The first covers 14,000
engineers in the SPEEA Professional Bargaining Unit. The second
contract covers 7,000 technical workers in the union’s Technical
Bargaining Unit. While the majority of workers are in the Puget Sound
region, the contracts cover employees in Oregon, Utah and California.
Both contracts expire Dec. 1.

No details can be released until after union negotiators present the
agreements to the SPEEA Professional and Technical bargaining unit
councils at a special meeting set for 5 p.m., this evening (Friday,
Nov. 14).

Main Table negotiations started Oct. 29.

Source: SPEEA.org

News of the delay just broke. I was getting word over last 48 hours of something big coming out today, it looks like this is it. No word on when roll out of first flight would be. Though one could speculate that first flight would be late 2009 or early 2010.

An industry source tells FlightBlogger that Boeing is expecting 6 747-8F deliveries in 2010 followed by a production ramp up to about 4 per month.

Boeing Adjusts 747-8 Program Production and Delivery Schedule

• Deliveries of 747-8 Freighter to begin third quarter of 2010; deliveries of 747-8 Intercontinental passenger model to begin second quarter of 2011.
• Company working with customers to minimize disruption.
  Intercontinental passenger model to begin second quarter of 2011.

EVERETT, Wash., Nov. 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Boeing (NYSE: BA) today announced an adjusted schedule for production and delivery of the 747-8 Freighter and Intercontinental airplanes.

The revised schedule is based on a production and flight-test plan developed in conjunction with the company’s suppliers that provides additional time for addressing issues that have slowed the program’s progress. Those issues include supply chain delays driven by design changes to the airplane, limited availability of engineering resources inside Boeing, and the recent Machinists’ strike that halted production in the company’s factories.

Boeing today confirms that the 737 programme faces a new challenge to return to full rate production. Thousands of small pieces of structural hardware must be replaced because of a lack of corrosive coating.

The airframer says the components, known as nutplates, do not present “an immediate safety of flight issue.”

The problem impacts “thousands” of nutplates in each 737 fuselage. The company adds that about 30% will require replacement, a number that runs about 3,000 to 4,000 nutplates per fuselage according to a program source, though the number varies depending on the model of 737.

Boeing is currently ramping up 737 production to its normal rate of about one per day, following the 57-day strike by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM). The nutplate quality issue, however, means assembly workers must scramble to replace the parts before each aircraft now on Boeing property can be delivered.

Boeing emphasizes that no 737 will be delivered unless it meets proper conformity standards. Boeing declined to specify what impact the nutplate replacement would have on the pace of production and deliveries.

Boeing says it is devoting significant resources to solving this problem quickly.

Spirit AeroSystems is responsible for development of the 737 fuselage at its Wichita, Kansas facility. Once completed, the green 737 fuselage is shipped by rail to Renton, Washington, for final assembly.

Once completed, aircraft are flown to Boeing Field near downtown Seattle for delivery to customers.

Boeing says that one of three of Spirit’s nutplate suppliers had been delivering parts lacking anti-corrosion material, adding that a root-cause analysis will be undertaken in conjunction with Spirit to prevent the problem from recurring.

Spirit was unavailable for comment.

Boeing adds that all non-conforming nutplates that have yet to be installed at Spirit have been returned to the supplier.

Staff from Spirit have been dispatched to the Seattle area to help identify and fix fuselage sections that are not yet in the final assembly phase.

However, the problem is not limited to only those aircraft waiting to be assembled and delivered.

According to Boeing, 737s delivered to customers since August 2007 contained non-conforming nutplates. Boeing’s delivery website says that 394 737s were delivered between August 2007 and October 2008.

The company is working with the FAA to address the in-service fleet. Boeing says that only areas exposed to moisture could potentially present problems in the long-term by corroding prematurely.

737-800 Assembly Video after the jump
Photo Credit: FlightBlogger

Submitted without comment.

The remains of the Airbus A340-600 (msn 856) written off before delivery to Etihad, originally uploaded by DigitalAirliners.com.

You may remember this infamous aircraft from the brutal accident that severely injured the ground test crew of Etihad’s A340-600 (MSN856) last fall. This appears to be all that is left of the aircraft at Toulouse. The aircraft was going to be A6-EHG, but was heavily damaged during and engine run up while it was still in test registration F-WWCJ.

The accident happened almost a year ago (Nov. 5, 2007) and was reported here live as the accident details became available. Coverage of this accident generated the highest traffic this blog has seen to date.

From the Archives
November 5, 2007: Etihad A340-600 Severely Damaged in Engine Test
November 20, 2007: Etihad A340-600 Accident Photos

UPDATE: It looks like the tail made it to Paris for an environmental exhibition on the Place de la Concorde. Hat tip to LS for the find.

Sometimes the best resources are hidden right under your own nose! I went trolling across flightglobal.com yesterday and found some extraordinary features of this website that I don’t utilize nearly enough and you really should take a look at.

Five things I didn’t know about flightglobal.com

1. Cutaways – Flight has always been known for its cutaway drawings. Okay, I knew about this one already, but trust me, go exploring, you won’t be sorry. I’ve got more than enough anecdotal evidence to suggest that they have inspired many a child to become an engineer. We’ve got most of the database online. It’s definitely worth taking some time to explore. Each one is about 1000 pixels wide so you really get a good view.

When you throw apture in the mix you get a better look at things like the tail section of an Airbus A300 or flight deck of a Lockheed L1011.

http://flightglobal.com/cutaways

2. 100 Years of Flight Archive – Every issue of Flight International from 1909 to 2004 is available in a searchable PDF database. Every page, every issue. What about the August 16, 1945 issue at the end of WWII? Neil Armstrong walking on the moon in 1969? Want to see when the idea of the 787 was born? Watch the 20th century unfold in the sky.

http://flightglobal.com/archive

3. Incident Watch – Hidden beneath a few layers of content, I discovered that we keep a  constantly updated log of incidents with any powered aircraft (GA and above, including military) that happen around the world. It’s an excellent resource for boiling down an incident to its core elements. It also includes links to news stories and photos if they’re available.

http://www.flightglobal.com/staticpages/incidentwatch.html

4. Commercial Aircraft Directory – Flight has compiled an impressive database of the vital statistics of a huge number of commercial aircraft. It even includes the thrust rating for all the possible type of airframe/engine combinations. For a data junky like me, it’s a goldmine. Best yet, it’s available in metric and imperial.

5. Videos, videos, videos – I had no idea how many we actually had. Some recent ones like the delivery tour of the QANTAS A380 or interviews with airline CEOs provide an often unseen glimpse into the workings of the aerospace industry. There are even a few on there that were produced by yours truly. You can even upload your own to be featured on flightglobal.com.

One of my favorite airports in the world (have yet to visit) is Osaka’s Kansai Airport. Also known as KIX (ICAO: RJBB), the airport is 100% man made, which also includes the land it sits on. The airport started off with just one runway (6/24) and had a second (6L/24R) added to allow for 24 hour airport operations in September 2007.

The terminal building, which has some breathtaking architectural inspiration, is the largest of its kind in the world at 1.7 kilometers from end to end.

If you’re anything like me, you’ll enjoy browsing through these (not for real flying) approach and departure procedure charts for Kansai.

Another interesting fact is that the bridge that connects the island airport to the mainland necessitated an evolution in weather radar systems because it is so large it was creating a false windshear indication for arriving aircraft.

Here’s part one (of five). The remaining four can be found after the jump.

Obama to DC
President-elect Obama is making his first trip to DC today on an American Airlines MD-80. For historical comparison President-elect Bush used the American Airlines 737-800 Retrojet to get around after the 2000 election.

SPEEA and Boeing
Representatives from Boeing and SPEEA are sequestered at a SeaTac airport exchanging proposals and counter-proposals on contract language. Boeing calls the first offer “very respectable and oustanding.” SPEEA had a different take, calling the offer “incomplete
and disappointing.” The best and final offer is expected this week.

KLM gets first E-Jet
Royal Dutch Airlines KLM Cityhopper had its first Embraer E-190 delivered this weekend. PH-EZA bounced through Recife then to Tenerife on its way to Amsterdam.

Vought Earnings
Texas-based Vought Aircraft Industries announces its 3rd quarter earnings today. It should shed some light on the impact of the IAM strike and on-going 787 delays on the supply chain. Vought is responsible for fabricating the aft fuselage section (47 and 48) for the 787.

At its North Charleston facility, in response to the Boeing IAM strike
and Boeing 787 delays, Vought has implemented a temporary shutdown of
the bond fabrication operation and expects to extend the temporary
shutdown to the production assembly areas. The length of the temporary
shutdown will be determined by the length of additional delays in the
787 production schedule from Boeing.

There are some indications that the shutdown is likely to happen during the holiday season and layoffs are likely as a result. Back at Boeing all Machinists are expected to be back at work today jetliner production slowly ramps back up again.

One year with Flight!
It’s been a year since I officially went from rogue blogger to semi-respectable mainstream blogger. Rogue isn’t the right word, maybe maverick? I’ve logged 80,000 miles and 1,514,599 page loads over 4 continents and 6 countries. A colleague pointed out that that comes to 19 page loads per mile, which may or may not be a metric for productivity, I can’t tell.

Ground Force One, originally uploaded by flightblogger.

Ground Force One w/ MA plates parked on Pennsylvania Ave. this
morning. Go figure. I wonder if it has anything to do with President-
elect Obama’s visit to DC. I’m skeptical.

Aviation enthusiasts worldwide have been asking one very important question in the last several months. What Northwest aircraft will be painted first in Delta colors? Here’s the answer from the Minneapolis Star Tribune. We’ve answered the who, now all we need is the when!

The biggest airplane in Northwest Airlines’ fleet — a Boeing
747-400 — will be the first aircraft to be painted in the
red-white-and-blue color scheme of Delta Air Lines, which acquired
Northwest last week.

Photo credit: Jetabout

UPDATE: Well a little bit of addition digging tells me that the first 747-400 will be all painted up by December 12. The aircraft (reg. unknown) will be painted in Victorville, CA and other Northwest planes will be painted in Mississippi.