787 grounded :(
 

Not good.

FAA grounds all Boeing 787s over safety concerns - Business on NBCNews.com

Ouch. That's worst case if you're an airframe manufacturer.

I bet my 401k is taking a beating.

You should have sold BA last week.

Yup, that's a blow. Of course, they seem to be toasting a bunch of batteries, and that's bad.

I didn't realize how much they replaced hydraulics. Electric brakes? (factsheet, First electrically actuated braking system on a commercial aircraft)

I think I found the problem. Thales is the mfg of the charging system. It's owned by Lucas!

Neither GS Yuasa Corp., the Japanese company that supplies the batteries for the 787, nor Thales, which makes the battery charging system, would comment on the recent troubles.

JK!

There's an often forgotten cost to high density energy and power systems that comes back "to bite" you if you lose control. Nothing like an electrical fire far out over the ocean or high in the sky from a failed battery one can't quench. Sound move to ground the plane. I hope they did better with the "strings and glue" aspect.

BA is a buy.

Boeing is kind of the Porsche of commercial aviation -- it takes a while for them to get the kinks out of new models.

If I was a betting man I'd bet the evergreen 737 will be in production when they shut down the 787 line whenever that may be.

My sister's company makes the APU and Generator. Let me see what I can find out...

787 has a lot of new technologies, so the debugging continues

a lot of new electrics

brakes, no bleed air, many other features

I think it was in a 737 I once flew w/a hot pilot that left the runway and ascended to cruising altitude in the way of a MIG25.
The thing was a jet fighter. Barrel rolls were missed.

Serves Boeing Right for off-loading 85% of the design work and sub-component fabrication.


That plane won't make a profit for the next 15 years, big mistake on Boeing new manufacturing approach of letting Harbor Freight do the build.

They rolled the dice, and dealt their hand of card they now have to play.


Major sweet timing that the SPEEA engineering union is about to strike over all the off-loaded work and cost cutting measures of their pay/benifits.

Sorry Mr Boeing Management, you made your bed, now sleep in it you cheap cost cutting SOB's.

The farther jump ahead in technology, the more pain.

They will get this figured out, the press is trolling for a story.

New Products need to be debugged It's nature.

Boeing has some chips in the game on the 787. They have always had lots of chips in the game on a verity of products.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1358577598.jpg

Neither Boeing nor Airbus manufactures their own batteries. It this particular case(s,) it was Lithium Ion batteries (made by Yuasa) that self-ignited. The choice of cutting-edge technology (as in hi-density storage) was entirely done by Boeing themselves, not the outsourcing partners.

Incidentally, Airbus outsources majority of it's work. Heck, whole Airbus entity is one giant outsourcing hairball.
Personally, I believe that outsourcing is OK (albeit risky) as long as you know how to set deadlines and have clear QC-parameters.
It's somewhat blown out of proportions IMHO. They'l change all batteries to NiCd, loose a few pounds and that's it.

P.S. A380 uses LIon batteries as well, but only for emergency lights. ;)

That is how they flew in India

This is correct. With the fire potential on the Li-Ion batteries, I'm surprised they have as much widespread as they do. Of course, I'm typing on a laptop with Li-Ion batteries inside...

The quick fix will be to replace the Li-Ion batteries with "something else", and to pay the small weight penalty.

I haven't been able to talk to my sister, as she is working 12-16 hours days with the team trying to fix this fast.

On the 787, "Fast" has been the problem all along. The futher behind they got the more the pressure built to get it done "fast".......even 20-20 hindsight was ignored. Get those stacked up airframes fixed, "fast". Make a second production line "fast".
Jack up production "fast".......oh, make it cheeper too. Cut suppliers prices "fast".

They are on the fast track to hell. More pressure cooked chickens will come home to roost.