Originally Posted by
Boeing717Driver
Boeing has been building and designing commercial aircraft since 1916.......DO NOT GIVE UP HOPE!
This is true. The problem is that a majority of this aircraft was neither designed nor built by Boeing.
Boeing 787 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
After stiff competition, Boeing announced on December 16, 2003, that the 787 would be assembled in Everett, Washington. Instead of building the complete aircraft from the ground up in the traditional manner, final assembly employs just 800 to 1,200 people to join completed sub-assemblies and integrate systems. This is a technique that Boeing has previously used on the 737 program, which involves shipping fuselage barrel sections by rail from Spirit AeroSystems' Wichita, Kansas, facility to Boeing's narrowbody final assembly plant in Renton, Washington. As the major components have many components pre-installed before delivery to Everett, final assembly time is reduced to only three days. This is less than a quarter of the time traditionally needed for Boeing's final assembly process. In order to speed delivery of the 787's major components, Boeing has modified three 747s purchased from Chinese and Taiwanese airlines. Called Dreamlifters, these widened airplanes can house the wings and fuselage of the 787 as well as other smaller parts.
Boeing's Everett Facility, selected as the site of 787 final assembly.Boeing manufactures the 787's tail fin at its plant in Frederickson, Washington, the ailerons and flaps at Boeing Australia, and fairings at Boeing Canada Technology. This was a new and daring step for Boeing, which has historically guarded its techniques for designing and mass producing commercial jetliner wings. For economic reasons, the wings are manufactured by Japanese companies in Nagoya such as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which also makes the central wing box. The horizontal stabilizers are manufactured by Alenia Aeronautica in Italy; and the fuselage sections by Global Aeronautica and Vought in Charleston, South Carolina (USA), Kawasaki Heavy Industries in Japan and Spirit AeroSystems, in Wichita, Kansas (USA). The subcontractors are all designing with CATIA V5.
The passenger doors are made by Latécoère (France), and the cargo doors, access doors, and crew escape door are made by Saab (Sweden). Japanese industrial participation is very important to the project, with a 35% work share, and many of the subcontractors supported and funded by the Japanese government. On April 26, 2006, Japanese manufacturer Toray Industries and Boeing announced a production agreement involving $6 billion worth of carbon fiber. The deal is an extension of a contract signed in 2004 between the two companies and eases some concerns that Boeing might have difficulty maintaining its production goals for the 787. On February 6, 2008, TAL Manufacturing Solutions Limited, a subsidiary of the Tata Group (India) announced a deal to deliver floor beams for the 787 from their factory at Mihan, near Nagpur, India to assembly plants in Italy, Japan and the United States.
Messier-Dowty (France) builds the landing gear, which includes titanium forged in Russia, and brake parts from Italy, and Thales supplies the integrated standby flight display and electrical power conversion system. Honeywell and Rockwell-Collins provide flight control, guidance, and other avionics systems, including standard dual head up guidance systems. Future integration of forward-looking infrared is being considered by Flight Dynamics allowing improved visibility using thermal sensing as part of the HUD system, allowing pilots to "see" through the clouds. Connecticut (USA)-based Hamilton Sundstrand provides power distribution and management systems for the aircraft, including manufacture and production of Generator Control Units (GCUs) as well as integration of power transfer systems that can move power from the Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) and the main engines to the necessary parts and machinery of the aircraft. Cold weather test of the APU took place in Alaska.
The first composite fuselage section rolled out in January 2005, and final external design was set in April 2005. On June 30, 2006, Boeing celebrated the start of major assembly of the first 787 at Fuji Heavy Industries' new factory in Handa, Japan, near Nagoya.
The long-term cost of short-term gains made by outsourcing rears its head yet again...