FlightBlogger Archive 2007-2012

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  • Photo of Note: 747-8I heads to the paint hangar

    747-8I-RC001_PaintShop_1000.jpg

    The first Boeing 747-8I left the Everett fuel dock and was towed inside the paint hangar Tuesday morning to receive its Boeing livery in preparation for its official debut on February 13. The aircraft, designated RC001, did not run its Pratt & Whitney Canada PW901C auxiliary power unit during its two days outside at Paine Field, says Boeing. What remains unclear is whether or not the company’s largest jetliner will wear flight test lite colors like that of the 747-8 Freighter or full Boeing Dreamliner livery like the first 777-200LR, 777F and 787 all wore in recent years for their respective certification campaigns.

    Photo Credit Moonm (3) Boeing (1 & 2)

    This post was originally published to the internet between 2007 and 2012. Links, images, and embedded media from that era may no longer function as intended.

    This post originally appeared at Flightglobal.com from 2007 to 2012.

  • Embraer charts hybrid course for fly-by-wire philosophy

    Legacy 450_Cockpit_560.jpg

    Listen to an Embraer technical briefing on the Legacy 500/450 fly-by-wire system with Fabrício Caldeira, flight control laws manager (first speaker), and chief project pilot Eduardo Camelier:

    ▶ Video originally embedded here

    player.soundcloud.com
    This Flash-based video is no longer available.

    For as long as there has been fly-by-wire on aircraft, there’s been a debate about how to best utilize the electronic flight control system and where to draw the line between pilot freedom and hard and fast boundaries protecting the aircraft and its occupants. This debate is far from settled with the most famous dispute between Boeing and Airbus charting different courses through computer driven flight control actuation.

    On the one hand, Boeing leaves the pilot’s judgment at the forefront, allowing overspeeding, stalling and over-banking within the flight envelope. The aircraft will let the pilot know, loudly, that they are approaching, or in, a potentially unsafe condition for the aircraft. Additionally, Boeing aircraft include an auto-throttle system resulting in the back-driven motion of the throttle quadrant providing a tactile cue to pilots without referring to the EICAS.
    For Airbus, fly-by-wire has resulted in hard limits on the aircraft flight envelope, preventing over-speeding, stalling, and over-banking of the aircraft. The maximum bank allowed is 67-deg, with nose-down pitch not exceeding 15-deg and a 2.5g limit. An auto-thrust system complements the A-floor protection by automatically spooling up the engines, limiting nose up pitch (angle of attack) to prevent the aircraft from stalling and providing best climb performance.
    While these have generally been two polar points on the augmented flight control spectrum, Embraer has charted its own path to full fly-by-wire for its first implementation on its all-new 10-passenger mid-size Legacy 500 business jet, due for entry into service in late 2012, followed by the smaller Legacy 450 in 2013. The aircraft were designed around their respective flight control systems allowing Embraer to optimize the structural sizing based upon the built-in protections.

    As
    it fleshed out the elements of its fly-by-wire philosophy, Embraer drew
    on the lessons learned from notable accidents over the years that
    involved human factors resulting from improper aircraft handling.

    What Embraer has created is its own course for implementing fly-by-wire technology and the Legacy 500 is its first platform. The path that Embraer has laid out for itself will undoubtedly become a hallmark of its flight control philosophy and will find its way the Brazilian airframer’s next generation commercial aircraft.

    Photo Credit Embraer

    This post was originally published to the internet between 2007 and 2012. Links, images, and embedded media from that era may no longer function as intended.

    This post originally appeared at Flightglobal.com from 2007 to 2012.

  • Movie Monday – January 31 – Flight Testing Shuttle Columbia

    This final week of January and early February offer somber reminders of the incredible risk astronauts have taken to participate in the manned exploration of space and their sacrifice in the line of duty to America’s space program. 

    January 27, 1967
    The crew of Apollo One, Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee, were killed when fire swept through their Apollo One capsule in Florida during a ground test. The mission was intended to be the first in-flight test of the Apollo Command and Service Module.
    January 28, 1986
    Twenty-five years ago this past Friday, the crew of STS-51L, Dick Scobee, Michael Smith, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Christa McAuliffe and Gregory Jarvis were killed, when Space Shuttle Challenger solid rocket booster ruptured causing the spacecraft to disintegrate a 72 seconds after liftoff.  
    February 1, 2003
    Space Shuttle Columbia, flying as STS-107, was destroyed on re-entry over Texas during its 28th mission. Rick Husband, William McCool, David Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Michael Anderson, Laurel Clark and Ilan Ramon, were killed following a 16-day Spacehab microgravity research mission. The accident was traced to an external tank foam strike on the leading edge of the shuttle’s wing during liftoff that damage the spacecraft’s heat shield. 
    This week’s Movie Monday takes an incredibly detailed in-depth look at the earliest days of the Space Shuttle program, with a 29-minute 1981 film about STS-2 and the flight testing of the orbiter Columbia. It was to be the first time in spaceflight history that an attempt would be made to launch the same spacecraft for a second time.
    The mission, flown by astronauts Joe Engle and Richard Truly, and included the maiden flight of the Shuttle Remote Manipulator System (SRMS), better known as the Space Shuttle’s Canadian-built robot arm. Mission commander Joe Engle had formerly been a North American X-15 pilot whose flights had taken him above 50mi in altitude, formally qualifying him as an astronaut before his first flight in space on STS-2.

    This post was originally published to the internet between 2007 and 2012. Links, images, and embedded media from that era may no longer function as intended.

    This post originally appeared at Flightglobal.com from 2007 to 2012.

  • News Analysis: Boeing maps out ten-year product strategy

    737 Final Assembly Line

    777 Final Assembly Line

    Following yesterday’s comments from Boeing CEO Jim McNerney, it is becoming increasingly clear that Boeing is inching closer and closer toward the implementation of a decade-long strategy to bring a derivative 777 and clean-sheet 737 replacement to market.

    The clearest signs yet came yesterday with comments from McNerney that the airframer has all but abandoned re-engining the 737 and instead sees a replacement for its high-volume narrowbody:

    If we could come up with the right airplane in roughly the 2019, 2020 timeframe, I personally feel that there’s a strong argument that the market will wait for us, not withstanding the re-enginging. Most of the feedback we’re getting from customers is alignment with that, but we’ve got to work through this year what the airplane, more precisely, will look like.

    Putting our backlog at risk twice, only makes sense if the airplane wants to be developed in 2025 or beyond. I think what we’re learning today about what our customers need and what technologies we have available to us, we are leaning toward development in the 2020 timeframe, but we’re going to confirm that as we go through it this year, reserving the option – if we’re wrong – as we go through the analysis to re-engine. But I don’t think it’s going to go that way.

    While Virgin America has solidified its role as launch customer for the Airbus A320neo, the competition between the European airframer and Bombardier almost included a third contender, in the form of an all-new aircraft from Boeing, industry sources tell FlightBlogger.
    Virgin America says no bid by Boeing was submitted and Boeing as a policy doesn’t discuss its dealings with customers or potential customers.
    Virgin’s commonality-driven competition was unlikely to go Boeing’s way, though the timeframe for such an offer of an all-new jet appears to have been “too late” to have been a contender, though it is the airframer’s most advance step yet toward formally offering a new aircraft.
    While Boeing’s earnings call yesterday did not directly address specifics on upgrades to the 777, reading between the lines of McNerney’s comments point to new mid-decade derivatives of the company’s largest twin jet.
    McNerney says fully replacing a 777 and 737 would not come simultaneously and calls the avoidance of such an overlap as “one of the independent variables in the equation.” For the coming research and development expenditures required for such a project, Boeing’s CEO references “derivatives”, but mentions only one specifically, a further stretch of the 787.

    New airplane developments, except for the possible derivatives, a [787]-10 would be an example of that, I think those interests tend to be…the derivatives would tend to be in the second half of the decade and then new airplanes would be at the end.

    However, Emirates, Boeing’s largest 777 customer, says it will begin retiring its older 777s (-200s, -300s and -200ERs) starting in 2017 and hopes to replace each one with 70 777-300ER-sized aircraft (354 seats) for non-payload restricted missions like Dubai to Los Angeles. To meet this requirement and timeline, new 777 variants will be required in the latter part of the decade to meet the carrier’s target. 
    The extent of the changes remains mightily unclear, though company sources say a common type rating is essential for the next evolution of the widebody, just as it was for the Next Generation 737. Changes ranging from basic fuel burn, manufacturing and maintenance cost improvements all the way to ambitious plans for an all-new composite wing, an additional stretch in a fuselage – also potentially composite – and a major update to the General Electric GE90-115B engine are all on the table.
    Ultimately, say company sources, McNerney comments reflect Boeing’s long term commercial business plan, which establishes a development path from the 787-8 and 747-8 freighter and Intercontinental delivering in 2011 and 787-9 in 2013; clearing the way for a 787-10 in 2015/2016, an updated 777 in 2017/2018 and concluding with a clean sheet 737 replacement in 2019/2020.

    This post was originally published to the internet between 2007 and 2012. Links, images, and embedded media from that era may no longer function as intended.

    This post originally appeared at Flightglobal.com from 2007 to 2012.

  • Sources: ANA to see its first 787 in September

    Boeing 787 Dreamliner N787EX ZA002

    My first of a few reports on the Boeing earnings call:

    Boeing holds firm to 787 production ramp-up
    Boeing aims to deliver a dozen or more 787s in 2011, with industry sources pointing to September for first delivery, while the airframer maintains its original plan of building 10 aircraft per month by the end of 2013.
     
    The airframer declined to elaborate on its the third quarter guidance or confirm the September delivery target. However, while reporting its full year earnings, Boeing says it intends to deliver a combined total of between 25 and 40 747-8s and 787s this year, with a roughly 50-50 split in its guidance. Boeing says these deliveries will be a part of the 485 to 500 aircraft produced in 2011.

    This post was originally published to the internet between 2007 and 2012. Links, images, and embedded media from that era may no longer function as intended.

    This post originally appeared at Flightglobal.com from 2007 to 2012.

  • Boeing 2010 Year-End Earnings Liveblog

    7:30 AM ET: Boeing has released its fourth quarter and full year 2010 earnings. The company says it expects to delivery between 25 and 40 747-8 and 787 aircraft in 2011. Further live blogged coverage of the company’s earnings call will begin here at 10:15 AM and on twitter. Please follow @flightblogger & @thedewline for coverage and live analysis of Boeing’s commercial and defense businesses.

    8:18 AM ET: Boeing shares are down around $3.25 in pre-market
    trading on the 35% drop in fourth quarter profit and overall 8% decline
    in full-year revenue due to research and development expenditures for
    its 787 and 747-8 programs, as well as lower deliveries from a year ago. This comes despite a $3.3 billion in full-year 2010 profit up 152% over the previous year.

    9:06 AM ET: A quick closer look at Boeing’s estimate for the 25-40 747-8 and 787 deliveries in 2011. Currently, 747-8 production is running somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.5 airplanes per month, heading to 2/month in 2012, with 10-12 production aircraft already built. Based on these figures, Boeing could deliver (at most) 30 747-8Fs this year, but this assumes a very low level of post-certification rework required on these aircraft.

    This post was originally published to the internet between 2007 and 2012. Links, images, and embedded media from that era may no longer function as intended.

    This post originally appeared at Flightglobal.com from 2007 to 2012.

  • 787 heads south for the winter in search of high and low ground

    Boeing 787 Dreamliner N787FT ZA005

    Earlier today, Boeing’s fifth 787, ZA005 left Albuquerque, New Mexico enroute to Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. The first GEnx-powered 787 landed around 5pm local time at the airport, which features the longest runway in the Caribbean. ZA005 is currently undertaking a campaign of high altitude tests at varying temperatures also known as Lapse Rate Takeoff (LRTO) testing, which sources say is being undertaken in three phases.

    The first phase, now complete, was a series of tests at Albuquerque International Sunport’s 13,000ft long runway that sits at 5,355ft above sea level for the mid-altitude portion of the trials.
    ZA005 has returned to sea level for the low-altitude portion of the testing with its visit to the 11,702ft long runway at Rafael Hernandez International Airport in Aguadilla and will remain in Puerto Rico through the week.  
    At the close of this week, ZA005 will head to El Alto Airport in La Paz, Bolivia for the final high-altitude portion of the tests. Interestingly, the airport also goes by the name John F. Kennedy International Airport.

    What distinguishes this particular airport from others in the world is its 13,325ft elevation above sea level and its 13,125ft long runway making it one of the highest points on Earth served by a commercial aircraft. It will also be 787’s first time touching down on South American soil.

    This post was originally published to the internet between 2007 and 2012. Links, images, and embedded media from that era may no longer function as intended.

    This post originally appeared at Flightglobal.com from 2007 to 2012.

  • Movie Monday – January 24 – Frontline: Flying Cheaper

    PBS Frontline journalist Miles O’Brien continued his look at the price of airline industry cost cutting by examining outsourced maintenance operations for commercial aircraft. The piece, which only runs 18 minutes, begins at a show I attended last year, MRO Americas in Phoenix, Arizona and goes on to investigate ST Aerospace’s Mobile, Alabama facility where workers allege they are pressured to sign off on non-completed maintenance jobs. 

    The discussion is the return of a perennial question in this industry about how to cut costs while maintaining an identical or improving level of safety, a question that extends far beyond maintenance operations.
    It is said that an accident occurs when holes in all of aviation’s different protective layers line up allowing the opportunity for accident to find its way through. These layers include, but are not limited to, checklists (pilot and crew judgment), inspections (the enforcement and presence of regulation), system redundancy and structural ability to withstand damage (aircraft design). O’Brien leaves the question open as he concludes the piece, though he sees the maintenance companies in question as eroding one of those protective layers.
    An engineer whose work has focused on further improving aviation safety says (emphasis theirs):

    What this is is an economics issue. When these bad repairs are caught, the part must be repaired/replaced on site (so the flight is delayed) or at a repair facility (so the passengers need to be put on another airplane). This ends up costing more than the original botched repair, plus the cost of not efficiently making profit from that planeload of passengers. 

    But, if the money consistently saved by sending most jets to cheaper MROs is greater than the money occasionally spent in the consequences of the improperly-done repairs, then hey, it’s worth it. Especially if the airlines trust that [the protective layers] will be enough to keep the repairs from causing an accident, and that this system of double-checks is all that the FAA can reasonably require.

    The topic deserves a broader look than the brief examination here, which would hopefully include more than non-US companies operating maintenance facilities domestically, but specifically how maintenance is done in house at airlines around the world, if only to establish a contrast – if one exists – between the two types of facilities. 

    This post was originally published to the internet between 2007 and 2012. Links, images, and embedded media from that era may no longer function as intended.

    This post originally appeared at Flightglobal.com from 2007 to 2012.

  • Airbus pulls the A350 XWB Andon Cord

    In the dogma associated with lean manufacturing, the Andon Cord holds particularly venerable position in industrial circles. The Andon Cord, coined by Japanese car maker Toyota, places the power of stopping a production line in the hands of each and every employee.

    According to Toyota, pulling the cord is done when “a problem on any vehicle is spotted…Only when the problem is resolved is the line restarted. This process involves every team member in monitoring and checking the quality of every car produced”

    Airbus, in essence, has pulled its own Andon Cord by pushing back the start of final assembly of MSN001, the first A350-900, to the end of 2011.

    Seeking to avoid the production debacle that delayed the A380 two years, chief operating officer Fabrice Bregier says: “when you’re not ready, you don’t move from one step to another.”

    According to reporting by Flightglobal, Bregier added that no milestones would commence before maturity. In an aerospace world fixated on concurrent testing and production, such a statement echoes a different approach than we’ve seen in recent years from many manufacturers, including Boeing and the 787.
     
    A similar Andon-style Cord has been installed on both the Boeing 737 and 777 moving lines for exactly the same purpose. While the moving line instills urgency in the fix, the act of stopping an assembly line is a daunting action, and it places the responsibility for quality at all levels.

    In the early years of A380 and 787 production, both Boeing and Airbus found themselves mired in traveled work, the antithesis of lean manufacturing, that required jobs to be performed out of their originally intended assembly sequence while the design was still in flux.

    Boeing in particular still struggles with the rework required to prepare 787s for delivery as it aims for a third quarter certification, though the airframer keeps pulling the cord – halting deliveries to final assembly. Even as it heads well past two dozen airframes still performing rework, have the stops accomplished their stated objective?

    Airbus may push back final assembly further and first delivery may slip into 2014 as many expect it to, but Bregier bluntly identifies the choice at hand: “Perhaps it’s a bit too demanding but, if we do that, it will be much
    simpler, and I prefer to take a couple more months at this stage to
    avoid potentially big problems.”

    This post was originally published to the internet between 2007 and 2012. Links, images, and embedded media from that era may no longer function as intended.

    This post originally appeared at Flightglobal.com from 2007 to 2012.

  • Photo of Note: T-38 chases 787 fuel jettison test

    As often happens in aviation, there are eyes in the most unlikely places. On Monday, ZA004 restarted 787 certification operations with a test of its fuel jettison system. While high in the skies over Arizona, the system was tested along with one of Boeing’s T-38 chase planes. You’ll also note the wings are a day-glo red, for a reason that I’m not entirely sure of at the moment. Though my first guess would have to do with visual contrast of fuel venting against the wing. Either way, it makes for a heck of a shot of the 787 against a brilliant blue sky.

    ZA004-FuelJettison-AZ.jpg

    Photo Credit John Bezosky

    Pima Air and Space Museum

    This post was originally published to the internet between 2007 and 2012. Links, images, and embedded media from that era may no longer function as intended.

    This post originally appeared at Flightglobal.com from 2007 to 2012.