787 Woes
 

Have you all been hearing this stuff on the news? Evidently, the 787 has turned out to be a huge piece of crap. According to Fox this morning, a Jap 787 had to land due to another battery fire. They've now grounded the whole fleet.

It's real sad that the French build a better plane than we can.

That's because "We" (experienced, unionized Boeing workers in Everet) didn't build it.

Boeing decided to outsource most of it, that's why it was delayed for 3 years, nothing fit right when the outsourced work came back. So they built a plant in a "Right to Work" state, just to get around using Union workers to build it.

As with most things in life, you get what you pay for.

Pay peanuts, expect a circus.

Actually it was only when nonunion labor got the task that things started to go right. Non union is faaaaaaar superior to union made crap.

Those union workers in Seattle have been building rock solid airplanes for a long long time.

Then this airplane is built by non-union non-american outsourced cheapest bidder companies and you get this hunk of junk.

Re. the "non Union is far superior" post above:

Yeah, I guess that's why the 777, 767, 757 and 737's all had worse problems and turned out to be such a huge POS...

Outsourcing isn't all it's cracked up to be.

787 Dreamliner teaches Boeing costly lesson on outsourcing « MADE IN USA NEWS

So...what's going right for the 787 these days?? :rolleyes:

Yeah, what was I thinking, promoting union work here, on an airline pilot web site...:rolleyes:

It's because they went with a lithium cadmium instead of a NiCad battery. They were looking for more amperage and lighter weight. But they seem to be overheating. It's not an outsourcing prob.

Typical engineer finger pointing when something doesn't work like it's supposed to on paper, blame the guy who put it together.

The shining light of outsourcing!

It does appear that these issues stem from design or faulty materials. However, Boeing employees are really irate over the company having a facility in South Carolina. I wonder if there might be some union sabotage occurring. Not saying that is the case, just a thought. I just know how ticked the workers were.

Back in the 70's to early 80's, Harley Davidson motorcycles were unreliable due in large part to union sabotage. After AMF bought Harley, worker dissatisfaction increased, and product quality suffered. Nuts and bolts were found in crankcases, parts were installed backwards, parts were machined to incorrect tolerances.

Due to lessons from the past, any speculation that some of this may be happening? If so, its a real bad situation when your dealing with airplanes ( motorcycles, too, for that matter).

I have a little inside baseball with Boeing.

It is most certainly NOT union sabotage, although that sort of things has happened before in other industries. This is aviation and those folks seem to have a higher sense of professional responsibility. That would be like ****ed off pilots rough-handling airliners to scare pax and get back at the company. Besides you'd be up on mass-murder charges if something happened.

The real problem with the 787 is that when the MBA's and been counters went looking for cheap labor offshore they somehow convinced themselves that they could get around the quality issue with ISO 9000 and similar certifications. Their fundamental gross conceptual failure was that many non-first world countries have inherently corrupt cultures (by western standards) and that anything like ISO 9000 is only as good as the people implementing it. This is amplified by the fact that they relied on offshoring for not just production but design as well.

There are very few places where you can have your cake and eat it to, ie low labor cost for skilled, quality labor and processes.

In retrospect, Boeing should have been far more selective in their outsourcing. After all is said and done I'm not sure they saved a dime.

Interesting indeed, I hate to say it, but serves them right. I wonder what these MBAs and bean counters are thinking now? I'm sure they accept ZERO responsibility

Actually Boeing has rogered up for their miscalculation and presumably won't make the same mistake with the 737 upgrade/replacement...

http://madeinusanews.com/2011/02/22/...n-outsourcing/

I'm annoyed because I dumped my lock-mart stock a few years ago when I started to get suspicious about the F-35 (good move)...but I hung onto Boeing because it looked like they were over the certification production ramp-up problems. I assumed once it started flying, it would be all good. I didn't think it would start to to rot from the inside-out on the line due to systemic quality issues. Hopefully it's just a few glitches that can ID'ed and fixed, and not indicative of more to come...

Japan

Full article.

The launch of the A380 wasn't exactly stellar. The wing design initially didn't meet ultimate load specifications and had to be beefed up. The Vmu testing didn't go as planned and as such they severely damaged the test aircraft. Off-shored wiring bundles had to be redesigned as the first batch received were too short. The A380 was grounded for emergency inspections of wing cracks and continues to be a problem. Qantas grounded the A380 for 3 weeks after the uncontained engine failure which damaged other aircraft systems and very narrowly avoided a major crash.

Let's not get too down on the 787. There's a lot of risk in a new aircraft design. I'm sure they'll fix the battery and move on. There's a reason why all of our manuals have cautions and warnings and we get paid the big bucks.

After all the pinnacle/delta debacle im still amazed at the huge amount of morons that still defend non-union approaches... oh well, it serves them right.

I'm not following...

Pinnacle and Delta are both unionized pilot labor groups. Why would it serve as an example of shoddy, non-union work?

So when those B737s nose dived into the ground was that a non-union or outsourced problem?

Was those DC10 problems caused by non-union or outsourced problems?

I always love the pilot fingerpointing at "bean counters" and "MBA's" like they have horns and pointy tails. This has nothing to do with union vs non-union. This aircraft has been plagued with problems for many years. Cue the the cubicle troll management baseless accusations in 5 4 3 2.....

In the grand scheme of things these are some relatively minor issues when launching an aircraft this sophisitcated, i.e. A380
__________________

The 737 Power Control Units you reference were outsourced to Parker Hannifin. Boeing management conspired to cover up a known flaw:

the Boeing 737 Rudder Lawsuits

The 787's electrical system always seemed suspect to me. a 270 volt DC system is going to get hot fast when it encounters resistance. There has not been a contactor ever built which is absolutely impervious to dirt, condensation and corrosion. The 235 volt V-AC side shares similar issues.

Simply stated, a lot of power is getting pushed through a small conduit. Anything not working right is going to get very hot, very quickly. I've not seen how they safeguarded the design, but one would think that fusible links would be impractical. Remote switches encounter control and contactor issues.

Getting rid of bleed air may have been a step too far in this sort of application.

Japanese 787? which airline?

There was 2 of them. One was All Nippon Airways (ANA), the other was, Japan Airlines I think.

Clearly you have not followed the problems Airbus has had in new aircraft introductions. So far the 787 has had outstanding dispatch reliability since it went into scheduled service. In fact its been much better then airbus has achieved. Yes they have having a problem with the Lithium Ion batteries made by a Japanese company. I am sure they will work it out or switch back to NiCads. The aircraft is meeting all specs for range and fuel consumption. The numbers are compelling and its going to be a game changer. Sadly my airline does not seem to want any.
Its also a aircraft built to integrate the pilot into the flying. Airbus attempts to isolate the pilot. Two very different approach but I know which one I prefer.

The FAA has grounded them now also. This is a turn for the worse, and will hopefully involve just a quick fix to an isolated system glitch.

I rode back to LAX from Houston on a unical 787. Nice ride, good first class. Hate to hear they're having problems, but serves Boeing right for screwing over their loyal employees.

Wasn't the DC-10 cargo door, kind of outsourcing issues in reverse? IIRC, the door was outsourced to General Dynamics (?) and there was some sort of failure during the first ground pressurization testing. I think that test also foreshadowed the issues with the floor buckling in those conditions and the fact that all of the -10's control cables ran through the floor vs other designs at the time. I think there were some memos between GD and McD at the time discussing the concerns and the possible need to redesign the door, but that McD brushed it aside because they were worried about getting to market late vs the 747 and L-1011. It's been a long time, but I remember reading a book called the Rise and Fall of the DC-10 and I think it even contained copies of some of the memos and other hush-hush correspondence. Corporate hijinks can easily trump that of the workers on the line.

Game Changer! Love it! Only until the other 800 are delivered and most of the airlines have similar casm.