Dreamliner dream

Boeing shares fell 9% after the company admitted tests show signs of stress in the aircraft body and the the maiden flight of its Dreamliner aircraft was delayed yet again today after the discovery.

The first airborne test of the 787 had been planned for next week and Boeing had been insisting everything was on schedule as recently as last week’s Paris Air Show.

But the company said today it had identified an area on the side of the aircraft where the new model had shown signs of stress in a static test. It now has to reinforce the aircraft to make it ready for its first flight and delivery, the schedule for which will not be available for several weeks.

Boeing shares dropped 9% in New York after the company warned investors it would update its financial guidance to reflect yesterday’s setback when it reports second-quarter figures next month.

The Dreamliner is Boeing’s first new aircraft since the 777, introduced more than a decade ago. Built with plastic composites and designed to use 20% less fuel than similar sized planes, the aircraft will come in three sizes to carry between 210 and 330 passengers.

It has attracted 865 orders and was supposed to enter commercial service in the first quarter of next year – already two years behind schedule.

Scott Carson, chief executive of Boeing’s commercial operation, said the problem was not connected with the choice of materials or the assembly and installation work. Experts had already identified several potential solutions, he said.

Scott Fancher, general manager of the 787 programme, said the problem area, identified in around 36 locations, was very small.

“We’re talking about a one or two square inch area along the side of the body, the join between the wing and the side of the body,” he said. “It’s limited to the upper portion where the wing and the upper body join. There are about 18 locations on either side of the aircraft … It’s not a problem that extends under the wings or down into the aircraft, it’s a very limited area that needs structural reinforcement. “There are a handful of parts in each location, each one you could literally hold in your hand, they’re about the size of your hand or smaller.”

Its easy to throw stones and be smart and one wishes them well. It will no doubt be sorted out and become a great step forward but there are many lessons to be learnt here and we may not be out of the woods yet.
Content from http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jun/23/boeing-dreamliner-delay

Otherwise, flight attendants continued to serve snacks. Passengers read magazines and watched movies. And the flight kept on its schedule.

But in the cockpit, the 60-year-old captain had died of a suspected heart attack and two co-pilots took over the controls. The 247 passengers aboard did not learn what had happened until the flight from Brussels landed safely Thursday and was met by fire trucks, emergency vehicles and dozens of reporters.

“I was shocked,” said Dora Dekeyser of Houston. “Nobody knew anything.”

“We weren’t panicking. I never thought it was something as serious as this. We were relaxed,” said Dekeyser’s granddaughter, Stephanie Mallis, 18, of Lansdale, Pa.

After the crew of the Boeing 777 asked if there were any doctors aboard, several passengers approached the cockpit, including a doctor who said the pilot appeared to have suffered a heart attack.

Dr. Julien Struyven, 72, a cardiologist and radiologist from Brussels, examined the pilot in the cockpit and tried to revive him using a defibrillator. But it was too late.

“He was not alive,” Struyven said. There was “no chance at all” of saving him.

The dead pilot was based in Newark and had worked for Continental for 32 years, the airline said. His name was not immediately released.

Tom Donaldson, a former leader of the Continental pilots’ union who currently flies Boeing 767 jets for the airline, said pilots must pass an extensive physical every six months to remain qualified to fly. The exam includes an electrocardiogram, blood pressure check and a vision test.

For long routes such as trans-Atlantic flights, a third pilot is aboard to permit the captain or first officer to take rest breaks.

Donaldson said there is no specific training on how to react if a crew member becomes incapacitated, but any one of the three pilots is fully qualified to operate the jet.

“Clearly you want another set of eyes watching when you’re going down a checklist, but you’re capable of flying the airplane yourself,” he said. “You can put the gears down, put the flaps down and carry out your other duties by yourself in an emergency.”

Air France pilot Hugues Duval, 29, said his co-pilot training included an exercise in which he had to take off and land without a captain.

“It’s not a drama. If the captain is ill or incapacitated, you make sure he isn’t blocking any controls or the wheel,” Duval said in Le Bourget, France, where he was attending the Paris Air Show.

“After you ask for priority to land, you can also ask in the cabin if there is another pilot on board. In case you need help reading the checklist or taking the radio. I did it in a simulator,” said Duval, who flies the Boeing 777 but was at the air show to do stunt flying.

On Thursday’s flight, Martha Love of Greenwich, N.J., was sitting in the first row of the plane. She said passengers were not told what was going on.

“No one knew,” she said. She only became concerned after the plane landed, when she saw emergency vehicles lined up along the runway.

Simon Shapiro, a passenger from the Brooklyn region of New York City, was also unaware. “I didn’t hear anything or see anything,” Shapiro said. “I was wondering why there were so many cops.”

Passenger Kathleen Ledger, 45, of Bethlehem, Pa., said she learned about what happened when her cell phone rang after landing.

“My husband called me and told me,” she said.

She was impressed with the way the flight crew handled themselves and did not think passengers needed to be informed of the death during the flight.

“They did an incredible job,” she said. “I would have done the exact same thing.”

In 2007, another Continental pilot died at the controls after becoming ill during a flight from Houston to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. It landed safely with a co-pilot at the controls after being diverted to McAllen, Texas.
From Associated Press see: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iovN3SY651-awcKmIjXAkyb8z5RwD98TBRPO4

I rather suspect not.
How much does all this cost and where is the cost benefit analysis?
Having observed Aviation for quite a long time I have a very uneasy feeling that the reality here is that this is a feel good exercise for box tickers which will as is becoming usual lead to much of the effort and a large slab of the cost being handed on to the aviation community so bureaucrats can be seen to be doing good stuff.
Aviation is, perhaps inevitably, highly regulated but recently I have noticed increasing mountains of paper all in the name of compliance and safety with entities such as the SMS (Safety Management system) becoming required and yet in practice becoming more like a distracting burden. There is only so much time people can give to such things before they actually subtract from the time and attention available to Aviate safely.
Maybe there should be a requirement for a regulation to be removed before another can be applied?
I would be very intersted in the views of others on this.

National Transportation Safety Board member Debbie Hersman raised the idea on the third and final day of a hearing into the crash of Continental Connection Flight 3407, which went down near Buffalo, N.Y., killing all 49 people aboard and one person on the ground. She said the current warning system, which violently shakes the pilot’s control stick, goes off too late.
“I think this crew went from complacency to catastrophe in 20 seconds,” Hersman said. “The room is on fire at that point.”

NASA scientist and cockpit safety expert Robert Dismukes agreed, saying the evidence collected by the aircraft’s voice data recorder showed that pilot Marvin Renslow and co-pilot Rebecca Shaw were distracted. However, he said a better speed warning system would be “well worth looking at.”

Fatigue was also a factor in the crash, said safety expert Rory Kay of the Air Line Pilots Assn. Kay said the Federal Aviation Administration’s “duty and rest” rules were outdated, remaining nearly unchanged for 60 years.
The regulations say crew members must receive eight hours of rest within a 24-hour period, but evidence collected by the NTSB shows that Renslow and Shaw each had little or no sleep the night before the doomed flight. Both had commuted to Newark, N.J., their base for Colgan Air and where the flight originated. Renslow lived in Florida and Shaw in Washington state.

“An overhaul is absolutely past due,” Kay said.

Hersman also voiced concerns about regional pilots’ low salaries and companies’ relocation plans, which force crew members to commute long distances because they can’t afford to live closer to their base.

Kay said airlines should consider the human cost of their business decisions. He said pilots were treated “like migrant workers, moving around and chasing bases.”

To read the originla report see the L A Times 15 May

The planemaker has seen its first-quarter profit drop by half in the first part of this year, but says demand for its 737, the world’s most popular passenger plane, remains strong despite “market dynamics” with a backlog of 2203 aircraft.

The next-generation aircraft is due to be delivered to airlines in 2011. In an international launch yesterday for media in Seattle and elsewhere via video conference, Boeing plugged the features of the new model, including reduced fuel consumption of up to 2 per cent through airframe and engine improvements and a remodelled interior.

A psychologist, cultural anthropologist and focus groups around the world have contributed to the new cabin which borrows design features from the yet-to-fly 787 Dreamliner. It features sculpted sidewalls, contributing to the impression of bigger windows, and larger pivoting overhead storage bins adding to the openness of the cabin.

The pitch included details of the bin latch design (it can be pushed or pulled open) and the fact that reading light switches have been redesigned to avoid accidentally pressing the flight-attendant call button.

Reduced drag through fuselage modifications, including a more streamlined anticollision light, and engine modifications could save airlines more than $300,000 a year per aircraft based on industry average use and recent average fuel prices. Depending on how hard the aircraft was run, there were maintenance savings of up to 4 per cent.

Chief project engineer for the 737 John Hamilton said Boeing believed the model had plenty of life left.

The 737 has been the shorthaul workhorse for most airlines since the late 1960s but has faced stiff competition from Airbus’ A320 since the late 1980s.

“It’s a tough airplane to replace – there’s no big bang out there,” said Hamilton.

Air New Zealand has 15 Boeing 737s with an average age of 11 years. A spokesman said the airline would decide what to replace them with by November.

Air New Zealand also has eight of the long 787 Dreamliners on order, originally scheduled for delivery between 2010 and 2013. The first 787s are now likely to arrive at least two years behind schedule. It also has four 777-300ER aircraft on order from Boeing which will be delivered on schedule, in 2010 and 2011.

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