Tag: FlightBlogger Archive

SAO JOSE DOS CAMPOS — Embraer has completely overhauled its final assembly operations for the E-170 and E-190 family of aircraft, switching from a slant assembly to a pulsing assembly line.

The now two-month-old horse shoe-shaped final assembly line hosts five indoor positions and a sixth that sees the aircraft move to the flight line in preparation for flight test.

Embraer says that an aircraft will move positions every two days, spending a total of ten days inside, with an additional two days outside before flying.

The original slant line, which previously hosted seven
fixed dock slant positions exclusively for E-190 and E-195 aircraft, now consolidates E-170
and E-175 operations into a single final assembly line for both families.

The new system seeks to removes critical path milestones, such as the
installation of interiors, engines and other key assembly tasks that could otherwise hold up the movement of the assembly line.

The horse shoe shaped assembly line eliminates the wing-to-body join process from the final assembly area. The mating of the wings to the fuselage is now done elsewhere at Embraer’s Sao Jose dos Campos facility.

After the wing-to-body join is complete, the aircraft arrive fully painted in preparation for systems installation, interior outfitting, engine installation and other pre-flight checks including power-on.

The new system, which the company says was approved in 2007, is part of
Embraer’s push to incorporate philosophies of lean manufacturing into
its aircraft assembly operations.

The company says that the Phenom 100 very light jet was the first Embraer
aircraft to incorporate this methods into its production plan from
day one.

Bom Dia from Sao Paulo!, originally uploaded by flightblogger.

Good morning from Brazil! Just arrived here in overcast Sao Paulo after a quick 9.5 hour flight from Dulles on 777 N798UA. I’ll be here
for the next three days visiting Embraer in Sao Jose dos Campos about
45 minutes away. I’ll be in the factory later today to see the
company’s commercial assembly lines and the off to Gaviao Peixoto to
see the Phenom operations tomorrow. I’ll also be getting a further
update on Phenom 300 flight test and Legacy 500 development. Should
prove to be a very busy first half of the week for me. More from Brazil soon!

A somewhat rare Sunday post for me, but I thought it was a good chance to get oriented once again on the whereabouts of the 787 fleet.

ZA001 remains in Paint Hangar 45-04 where it has been since late July for side of body modifications. ZA002 was moved on Friday to the 48,375 square foot temporary structure ahead of its modifications as well, with ZA004 making the trip south to Aviation Technical Services (ATS) on Wednesday for the same purpose. If this order is any indication, the first, second and fourth 787s will likely fly in that order as well.

ZA003, still unpainted with a red Northwest rudder, is parked along side ZA005 in Building 40-24 (below) behind a China Southern 777-200LRF. ZA006 is all buttoned up in storage on the flightline and will head to ATS next.

The ZA designations, which were originally meant to run sequentially early into the production run, were changed when the delivery order for the early 787s were reassigned to All Nippon Airways. As a result, ZA007, the seventh production 787 became ZA100. However, the ZA numbers no longer run sequentially. ZA100 through ZA102 represent Dreamliners Seven through Nine, while Dreamliner 10 is designated ZA104 and Dreamliner 11 is ZA103. Confusing things further, Dreamliner 12 is ZA105 and Dreamliner 13 is ZA115.

The first production 787s are all positioned inside Building 40-26 (top) with ZA100 at position three, ZA101 at position two and ZA102 at position one in the body join tooling. The line is expected to pulse in the middle of next week to make way for assembly of Dreamliner 10/ZA104. The aft fuselage and wings for ZA104 have been in the factory since each arrived on August 31st and September 1st, respectively.

ZA100 now sits at the head of the 787 final assembly line, with ZA101 at position three and ZA102 in the body join tooling at position one. Both ZA101 and ZA102 have yet to receive their vertical tails yet.

ZY998, the fatigue test airframe, is now positioned on the flight line and ZY997 is being
prepped for the side of body fix in Building 40-23 where the aircraft
has been since April 2008. ZY997 and ZA001 will be modified concurrently.

Photos Courtesy AirShowFan

I always have trouble finding the right thing to say on this day.  

We all have our stories of where we were on the 11th of September 2001.

I have my own story, but perhaps today isn’t the day to share it. I find days like today are meant for listening. Listening to the experiences of those who lived it in New York and Washington, D.C., the city I now call my home. Perhaps most importantly, I listen to the silence and remember the emptiness left by the gaping hole in the New York City skyline.

And naturally our thoughts move to aviation and the perversion of innovation meant to bring people together, not tear them from our lives. After eight years, it still pains me that something that has brought much joy in my life was used as a vile weapon.

Though I try not to think of the pain, fear and uncertainty of that pristine September day, but rather the courage, unity and the sense of sacrifice and purpose that took hold in the days that followed.

On this day, I take pride in the city that I call my home. I take pride in the city that welcomed my grandparents to Ellis Island almost a century ago. I take pride in the country that provides me the right to speak and write freely.

Let us never forget.

First Published 5:50 PM ET:
The machinists at Boeing Charleston have voted against continued representation by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, according to the employee hotline set up to notify the workforce of the result.

Employees voted 68 in favor of continued representation by the IAM and 199 against. A simple majority vote was required to continue the IAM’s representation of the Boeing Charleston workforce.

In reaction to the preliminary vote that has yet to be certified by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), Boeing spokesman Tim Healy said in a statement it was happy with the outcome and suggested that process was a distraction from the work going on at the facility:

“We are pleased that hourly workers expressed their desire to deal
directly with the company on employment matters without any
intermediary. We’re also pleased that Boeing Charleston can now move
forward to focus on excellence and meeting commitments on the 787
program.”

According to a report on thestreet.com, IAM spokesman Bob Wood indicated that Boeing involved itself in the vote:

“It’s a democratic process. We certainly
feel that workers would be better with union representation. It’s too
bad that Boeing did not stay neutral in the process and let the workers
decide.”

Healy maintained that the petition to de-certify was driven by employees alone and Boeing had no role in its initiation. Adding that per the rules laid out for a de-certification vote, after the election is scheduled “both sides have a right to communicate their point of view.”

Healy said that the initial 2007 vote for representation by the IAM took place prior to Boeing’s July acquistion of the Vought Aircraft Industries facility which is responsible for the fabrication and integration of the 787’s aft fuselage sections.

The vote may clear the way for Boeing to select the North Charleston, South Carolina site as the location for the second 787 line. A final decision on the line has been based in large part on the relations between Boeing and the IAM, its largest union.

The IAM, which represents the company’s more than 25,000 machinists and aerospace workers, went on strike halting production in Boeing’s commercial aircraft factories for 57-days during September and October of 2008.

The the vote is expected to be certified by the NLRB within seven days.

Vought Aircraft Industries – June 2008

Machinists and aerospace workers at Boeing Charleston, formerly Vought Aircraft Industries, are voting from 1:30 to 5:00 PM ET on the future of the workforce’s relationship with International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. The vote could play a pivotal role in deciding whether or not Boeing selects the North Charleston, South Carolina site for the second 787 line. Company officials insist that the vote is not tied to the decision on the second line, but the issue of labor relations with the IAM in Seattle are at the center of Boeing’s thought process on the location of expanded 787 assembly.

FlightBlogger will cover news of the vote as details become available.

Touring Wichita’s Spirit AeroSystems, originally uploaded by flightblogger.

This 737-800 will find its way to a railcar bound for Renton shortly.

The Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China has been sharing details about its new C919 aircraft and its early vital statistics have it taking a market space directly between the Boeing 737-800/A320-200 and the smaller 737-700/A319-100.

The C919 will seat 168 in a single-class economy configuration or 156 in a mixed class arrangement with two variants, a standard and extended range model. The standard range will fly 2,200 nm and 3,000 nm for the extended range model. The range comparison puts the performance of the C919 slightly below that of the comparable narrowbody offerings from Airbus and Boeing. Flight also reported from Asian Aerospace 2009 that Comac plans smaller (130-seat) and larger (190-seat) variants of the C919.

This particular date, September 9, 2009, or 09/09/09 no matter how you write your date, actually holds the explanation for why the C919 is called the C919. Nine is a number of special significance in Chinese culture. Just as the number eight was selected for the 787-8 and the A380-800 as a Chinese symbol of good luck, Comac opted to use 9 for its symbolism as well.

According to Wikipedia:

The number 9 (九, Pinyin: jiŭ, jyutping: gau²), being the greatest of single-digit numbers, was historically associated with the Emperor of China; the Emperor’s robes often had nine dragons, and Chinese mythology held that the dragon has nine children.

Moreover, the number 9 is a homophone of the word for “longlasting” (久), and as such is often used in weddings.

Longevity appears to be at the center of Boeing’s thinking about its future Chinese competitor as well as well. Boeing CEO Jim McNerney last week addressed the question of longevity and customer commitment to Chinese commercial aircraft.

If you’re sitting on a panel in 10 years talking about a Chinese participation in the manufacturing of airplanes, what kinds of things do you think you’ll be saying regarding technical proficiency, marketing success, product design globally?

I think we’ll be saying that technically, they can do it. I don’t know if it’s 10 years or 15 years, but — I would still guess at that stage, though, that customer acceptance will still be out in front of them.

Because when you build these machines, the issue is rarely, can you build it? The issue is, will the company stand behind it for 25 years? And will the company have the wherewithal to evolve derivatives the next fleet of airplanes, and all the services that come with selling these things?

I mean, when you look at a typical airplane and you sell it to somebody, the engine is rebuilt a couple of times; the airplane is rebuilt a couple of times; there’s improvements that are spiraled in while you do that. And so a customer needs to see an enterprise that will not only serve them but will have the wherewithal to keep improving the product. And that is what the Chinese will have to eventually overcome before they sell a lot of these to a lot of customers.

But technically, they do a lot of the components today. They’re learning how to assemble them in Tianjin right now. They’ve got to overcome the Shanghai experience in the late ’80s, in terms of customer perception. But technically, 10 to 15 years; customer acceptance a little bit beyond that. That would be their challenge.

Every new aircraft model tends to invite comparisons to previous models that have come before it. Fellow journalist and blogger Kieran Daly joked that it looked like a Bombraer-Boebus C7320. The one element that jumped out at me were the engines, which bear a striking resemblance to the GEnx-1B and Trent 1000 nacelles on the 787 with the elongated engine cowl for improved laminar flow.

On the supplier side, Comac has said CFM, GE and P&W are bidding to power the narrowbody and will be selected by year’s end. Flight also reports that:

Goodrich, meanwhile, has formed a joint venture with Xian Aircraft in
China in an effort to supply the C919’s landing gear and Honeywell,
which provides flight control systems for Chinese commercial aircraft,
has held talks with Comac.

Comac has also touted an efficiency improvement of 15% over the A320 and 737 while offering the aircraft for a lower cost than its western competitors, setting up a price war if the market is receptive to the product, especially outside of China’s borders.

First flight of the C919 is scheduled for 2014 with entry into service in 2016.

On the ground in Wichita, originally uploaded by flightblogger.

Beautiful weather here in Kansas for my arrival. That was my ride:
United Express CRJ200 N905SW. Time to get to work.