Blog

Sometimes the only thing that’s clear is that nothing is clear.

So, when is JAL getting Airplane 23, which is currently in San Antonio for rework? 

Three different targets from three different sources. The only thing that’s clear is that no one, perhaps even Boeing, is really sure when the Japanese carrier is getting its first 787s and just how many of those 12 to 20 Dreamliners will be in the hands of customers this year.

Sound off.

This week’s Movie Monday, comes from the extensive youtube aviation film archive contains a 35 minute 1943 training film on the flight characteristics of the Lockheed P-38 Lightning. The twin-engine fighter saw service in World War II and was one of the famed creations of Lockheed’s Kelly Johnson. This film was produced in the same vein as the North American P-51A and Messerschmitt Me-262 films that have also been posted to this page. 

The video covers normal precautions, single-engine aircraft handling, landing gear and flap emergency extensions and bailout techniques. This video is not a high-level look at the aircraft, but a detailed technical look its survivability training techniques for its pilots. Enjoy!

Ubiquitous Paine Field spotter Matt Cawby captured China Southern’s first 787 making its way from the paint hanger to the long-term storage ramp over at Future of Flight. This particular aircraft, the 34th 787 built (fatigue and static airframes notwithstanding), came through the global production system over the past eight months, having been spotted in the form of its winglets in South Korea to final body join in Everett. ZA380, which is registered B-2725, is slated for delivery to China Southern late this year. Next new customer out of the factory is expected to be Ethiopian Airlines with Airplane 39.

Reading between the lines of the National Labor Relations Board complaint against Boeing, it becomes clear that the foundations for the settlement between Boeing and the IAM may be self-evident in the form of the eventual permanency of the coming 787 surge line.

The NLRB alleges Boeing violated the National Labor Relations Act by placing the second 787 final assembly line in North Charleston, South Carolina as a retaliatory action for the fall 2008 strike that shutdown jetliner production for 57-days.

Boeing refutes the claim, however the NLRB cites comments to the Seattle Times by Boeing Commercial Airplane CEO Jim Albaugh regarding labor as the overriding factor in the decision. Additionally, Boeing airplane programs vice president Pat Shanahan (also cited in the NLRB complaint) told this page in June 2009 – ahead of the decision – that labor relations, not economic geography, was guiding the decision.

Shanahan declined to specify what locations were on the “short list” for a second 787 production line, but said there are “lots of geographical options…the real options are around ‘how do you secure assurance of delivery?’ And I think that’s been a discussion topic around some of the disruption we’ve realized…at Boeing.”

The disruption Shanahan referenced was the 57-day machinist strike that halted jetliner production at Boeing’s commercial manufacturing facilities during September and October of 2008.

A vote to decertify the IAM from then-Boeing Charleston followed in September 2009 and was one the precursor to the final selection in October 2009, along with the collapse of talks between Boeing and the IAM. An IAM spokesman at the time alleged Boeing told employees that if they decertified the union Charleston would be selected for the second line, a claim Boeing denies. Whether it was organized by official elements or not, there was a whisper campaign that was well understood to be driving a lot of the arguments around the vote. 

The eight-position Charleston horseshoe line (twice the size of the primary Everett line) is less than four months away from hosting the arrival of Airplane 46 for United Airlines, a milestone that is very likely to not be disrupted by the complaint as Boeing has vowed to “vigorously contest” any order.

The NLRB acting general counsel says an amicable settlement avoiding costly litigation is ideal, with its own recommendation comes near the end of its announcement:

To remedy the alleged unfair labor practices, the Acting General Counsel seeks an order that would require Boeing to maintain the second production line in Washington state. The complaint does not seek closure of the South Carolina facility, nor does it prohibit Boeing from assembling planes there.

The truth is, Boeing is already building a second 787 final assembly line and it will be operational in early 2012 and will provide temporary surge capacity to support the ramp up along side the primary Everett Building 40-26 line and the Charleston 88-30 line. This page reported in December that Boeing was investigating rates 70% higher than its 2013 goals that will rely heavily on the surge line:

That acceleration, say factory sources, may extend well beyond today’s 2013 goal to build 10 787s per month, with rises as high as 17 per month being investigated for mid-2016. That significant boost, beyond today’s unprecedented target, which calls for the planned Everett surge line, which aims for operation by early 2012, to be made permanent.

Boeing is advancing toward full-activation of what it sees as a second 787 factory at its Everett, Washington facility, one designed to incorporate the aircraft’s final certified configuration into dozens of Dreamliners already built, in a methodical move to convert billions of dollars of production inventory into cash for itself and its supplier partners and revenue generating aircraft for its customers.

By mid-year, Boeing will occupy all five bays inside Aviation Technical Services’ (ATS) Hangar Three, the largest of three buildings operated by the Paine Field-based maintenance, repair and overhaul provider.

The scale of the ATS operation comes as another in a series of industrial expansions for a program whose footprint looks significantly different from the one the company envisioned when it first was established.

Additionally, the $12.9 billion in 787 inventory that the company ended 2010 with continues to grow at a rate of approximately $500 million per month, according to its full-year earnings report, underscoring the massive costs already invested in the program and spread across 35 saleable aircraft in Everett and those aft and center fuselages in process in South Carolina, as aircraft arrive at final assembly at a rate of two per month.

Few details about the company’s plans for the ramping up modification work at ATS are officially confirmed, though in a recent interview Pat Shanahan, Boeing vice president of airplane programs acknowledged the growing scope of the MRO provider for its 787 modification plans:

“We’ll have two separate factories,” he says, adding “So its really like we have…a primary assembly facility and a mod facility in Everett, so it’s not like we’re going to have a bunch of people out on the flight line moving part by part into the airplane.”

Program sources briefed on the plans for ATS say what Boeing has devised is a systematic approach to tackling the 140,000 unfinished tasks left remaining on the fleet.

Boeing’s new general in the fight for deliverable 787s is Tim Coyle, who was responsible for integrating Vought and Global Aeronautica into Boeing South Carolina, now home to the second 787 final assembly line.

Once fully activated in late June, say those same sources, Boeing will operate five slant bays at ATS, east to west numerically designated one through five. Eventually each bay will be designated with a unique task, focusing on structures, wiring, systems, interiors, finishing and aqueous wash and aircraft closeout, with a three shift staff expected to be more than 1,200.

Speaking generally, Shanahan says “we’re coming up with new approaches to get those airplanes that have to go through change incorporation on the 87, to even do it more quickly.”

Declining to confirm the details of the ATS expansion, Boeing says, “We currently have four airplanes at the ATS facility. The space at ATS is being used for modifications and completions of early-production 787s. Our plan is flexible and will accomodate our production needs as we complete flight test and prepare airplanes for delivery.”

Jeff Salee, ATS marketing and public relations manager, declined to say how long Boeing would be occupying Hangar Three, citing contractual confidentiality, however he says only company office personnel remain in the facility and will be moved to nearby Hangars One and Two.

Shanahan says the bay that formerly housed the company’s 767 line will remain empty for the time being, where Boeing will “move [787s] inside that main factory…then prep them to go install the new configuration and we use that ATS facility to do all of that work.”

By early 2012, the vacant area of Building 40-24 will be replaced with the Everett surge final assembly line, intended to advance the airframer’s output to 10 aircraft per month by the end of 2013, along with the North Charleston factory coming online mid-year with a contribution of three aircraft per month.

With the latest configuration standards program sources say Boeing will be able to eliminate more than 30,000 of the outstanding jobs on the unfinished 787s by nullifying the planned structural, systems and software changes to the originally built aircraft, and implementing a wholesale wiring change – believed to be dubbed NC7 – bringing each up to a deliverable standard.

Along with ATS Hangar Three, Boeing activated its San Antonio facility in March, with Airplane 23, the first 787 for Japan Airlines, the first aircraft to go through change incorporation in Texas.

Currently, four of the earliest 787s slated for delivery per the Z23 schedule – Airplanes Seven, Eight, Nine and 24 – are sequestered at ATS in preparation for delivery, which is believed to be slated for July.

Fifty years and a week after Yuri Gagarin first orbited the Earth in Vostok 1, a new Russian commercial jetliner was delivered by Sukhoi bearing his name. The first production Sukhoi Superjet 100 was delivered to Armenian carrier Armavia at Zvartnots International Airport in the nation’s capital of Yerevan.

The aircraft, line number seven, has been registered EK95015 for Armavia, which is expected to begin commercial service between Yerevan and Moscow in the next few says once the final registration is approved, reports Flightglobal’s Tom Zaitsev.

The 100-seat jet differs from Russian jetliners the industry has seen before with significant western partnerships across the whole of the supply base and aftermarket support network as Superjet International – a joint venture between Sukhoi Civil Aircraft and Alenia Aeronautica – works to bring the SSJ100 to western markets. 

Certifying and delivering the first SSJ is a major step for Superjet, though the next customer, Russian flag carrier Aeroflot, is less pleased with the SSJ100 in its current form. Aeroflot chairman and transport minister Igor Levitin was quoted last week as saying the aircraft did not meet the contractual technical specifications promised by Sukhoi and has asked the Russian government to fine the airframer as a result of the ongoing program delays. 

How that situation is negotiated between the airline, the government and the airframer is already guided by the inherent political pressure that comes along with the Russian government’s desire to grow Sukhoi’s position in the global jetliner market, though the near-term challenge is how the SSJ navigates its entry into service, avoiding the struggles of its Eastern predecessors.

It’s rare that I open a post solely with a quote, but the one above, from Airbus’s Tom Williams A320neo briefing, should offer – not a glimpse – but shines a spotlight into how the European airframer thinks about new products. The incremental DNA of Airbus – rooted in the same principles of Piepenbrock’s Red-Blue and those that brought the 737 Next Generation into existence – identifies the ingredients for bringing a product rapidly to market in a way that seeks to be non-disruptive to its production system and to its customer base. 

It is in this same vein that we see Air Insight introduce its justification for a Next Generation 767, fitted with winglets, new engines, a KC-46A/787-style avionics and flight deck along with a new interior would provide a new commercial lease on life to Boeing’s high margin jet and a product for airlines that don’t need the 787-8’s 7,755nm design range.

This 767NG appears highly unlikely to come to fruition as the 767’s industrial footprint is now sized smaller for steady low rate output for the US Air Force. More importantly an upgraded 767 would be poised to cannibalize a signficant portion of the 787 business case. Though, if an aircraft derived in the same incremental spirit as Airbus is approaching the A320neo – and Boeing approached the 737NG – and is able to cannibalize the investment of its very expensive all-new majority-composite jetliner, then the 767NG is not a bad idea, just one whose idea has come far too late.

Monday night’s incident at John F. Kennedy International Airport, which featured the wingtip of an Air France A380 catching the horizontal stabilizer of a Delta CRJ700, has been broadcast widely, eliciting gasps and groans with the sight of the regional jet’s rapid 90-degree change of heading. The event has elicited calls to re-evaluate whether or not the A380 is too big to operate at congested airports – ironic as congested airports central to the aircraft’s business model – but while the historical context has largely been limited to reminders of the 1977 Tenerife accident, a far more recent example involving a jumbo and a regional jet offers some context.

In July 2006 the wingtip of a Thai Airways Boeing 747-400 in Madrid severed the stabilizer of an Air France Régional EMB-135 (full description of the incident) after the 747 inadvertently used a taxiway designed for aircraft no larger than Airbus A321s. The pictures of the aftermath are below.

The incident, which was not caught on video, didn’t happen in the US, but did involve the world’s largest commercial aircraft at the time did not elicit the same type of calls for a re-evaluation of using large aircraft at busy airports. This was likely because the taxiway was wasn’t intended for use by a 747 at the time, whereas taxiway A at JFK has been deemed A380 compliant. 

While the size of the aircraft was – for obvious reasons – a contributing factor in both incidents, the issue appears to be more related to situational awareness about the goings-on around an airport’s taxiways and tarmacs. 

The A380, 787 and 747-8 all feature airport moving maps on the flight deck with aircraft-centric displays directly integrated into the primary navigation displays and electronic flight bags. On Airbus aircraft the system is dubbed the Onboard Airport Navigation System (OANS) and the Airport Moving Map (AMM) for Boeing aircraft.

Missing from both OANS and AMM is the capability to display the position of other airport traffic providing a broad situational awareness for the crew on the flight deck. According to a feature in this quarter’s Aero, Boeing’s technical magazine, the airframer sees a possible 2015 availability for harnessing precision GPS-derived position data ADS-B to display nearby aircraft on the AMM. 

While there’s a natural tendency to overreact to an incident involving the largest commercial aircraft in the world striking a smaller regional jet at one of the planet’s busiest airports, a more reasoned incremental approach to solving the problem with technology will enable the best long-term solution. 

As air traffic worldwide continues to grow at a pace of 5% per year, airport infrastructure hasn’t been able to keep pace as congestion grows. A common refrain at this week’s MRO Americas conference was that as air traffic doubles over the next two decade, incidents and accidents cannot double as well. 

Jumbo jets have been with us for more than 40 years and wingtips large and small will infrequently make contact with objects providing a large-scale example of Newton’s laws of motion. This likely won’t change, though with the right technology, the frequency certainly can as aviation continues its worldwide growth.