Dreamliner teething problems continue

Fifteen airlines have been warned about the risk of ice forming on Boeing's new 747-8 and 787 Dreamliner planes. The issue - affecting some types of engines made by General Electric when planes fly near high-level thunderstorms - prompted Japan Airlines to cancel two international routes. There have been six incidents since April when aircraft powered by GE engines lost power at high altitude. These are the latest technical issues to hit the Dreamliner.

www.bbc.co.uk...

Story goes on to say that they mustn't operate within 50 miles of thunderstorms that contain ice crystals. And that JAL airlines have pulled their aircraft from a couple of routes due to this.

reply to post by solidshot


A 747-8F suffered damage to 3 engines earlier this year because of it. There is ice forming where it normally doesn't.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by Zaphod58



Thnx, so what have they changed in these engines that would cause it to affect these in particular? Also only seems to affect GE engines? Rolls are claiming there is no problems with theirs.

reply to post by solidshot


The GEnx is a bleedless engine, so it's removed the bleed air system used to power the aircraft, as well as being a smaller core engine. The bleed air system uses high temp/pressure air, so even though it didn't go through the engine, it kept heat in the engine from the air being blown through it.

The FAA has formalized Boeing's warning not to fly into or near convective storms with GEnx engines. There have been nine instances of power rollbacks due to icing, with two not recovering higher than idle power. If an aircraft accidentally flies through a system (which doesn't show up on weather radar) they are required to inspect the interior of the engine (with a borescope or similar system).

www.flightglobal.com...

Boing announced Fri. that they have wing cracks in some of the wings that are now in production aircraft:

Wing-maker Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd notified Boeing in February of the problem, which arose after the Japanese company altered its manufacturing process.

"We are discussing with Boeing how to deal with the problem," a spokesman for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Tokyo said. He was unable to comment on why the company changed the manufacturing process.

The cracks have not been found on planes that are in use by airlines and therefore pose no safety risk, Boeing said, adding the problem also will not alter Boeing's plans to deliver 110 787s this year.

www.reuters.com...

reply to post by Sammamishman


It's only something like 40 aircraft still on the line. So it's a problem, but not a major one.

reply to post by Zaphod58


Apparently not as big of a problem "yet" as Airbus had with it's cracks.

reply to post by Sammamishman


From what I've heard not even close.

A flight operated by Polish airline LOT has made an emergency landing in Glasgow after reports of smoke or a fire while it was en route from Chicago to Glasgow.

The pilot of the Dreamliner declared an emergency while the plane was over the Atlantic.

A spokesman for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service said firefighters were "currently in attendance" at Glasgow International airport.

www.cityam.com... twitter


Early days yet, but another smoke/ flame? issue for the Dreamliner.

a reply to: solidshot

It was a bad sensor reporting a fire in the cargo hold. They landed and when they opened the hold there was no fire, or smoke.

I love when reporters overreact. Sensors go bad on every aircraft out there. Hell we had one that got a fire warning light on takeoff every time they were near MTOW on one trip.

a reply to: Zaphod58

What do you make of this Zaphod?
This is a pretty scathing documentary against Boeing and their Management.
It seems their attention to Quality is less important than their profit taking.

I don't think I would be hopping on one anytime soon.



I'll give you a summary:


Mistakes Made:

1) The failed model of McDonnell Douglas carried over to Boeing Headquarters when the two companies merged. Bigger is not always better either.

2) Rather than hire competent people to assemble their planes, they hired cheap burger flippers off the street that were bragging about doing drugs on the job with no drug tests ever taken and shoddy in their workmanship.

3) Rather than make and assemble all the parts in Everett, Washington they outsourced all the parts to a gazillion different places around the globe.
The batteries and composite shell were the two most highlighted failures by quality inspectors but management signed off on it anyway and said to proceed with construction. They ducked tape the problem with the batteries with a steel vented enclosure and ignored the composite shell problem.

4) The Union Mechanics went on strike which pissed off Management so they moved assembly to South Carolina. The quality of work at the South Carolina Plant was horrible as said by Quality Control Inspectors. When parts did not fit, they were hammered in to fit as one example as said in the video by inspectors.

5) The FAA person overseeing the fixes being done to the Dream-liner signed off on the fixes twice and then moved on to a Lobbying Job in DC on behalf of the airline industry and suggested the airlines be allowed to self regulate.

6) The profits they would have made had they done it in house would be not as substantial but why not take a risk with other people's lives so you can pad your and others stock portfolios.

They have spent billions of dollars in rectifying these problems when they should have done it right in the first place all in Washington and from the usual National and Local suppliers.

We used to be a nation that prided itself on the quality of the products we produced.
There is an old timer saying I heard growing up, "Do the job right or don't do it at all"

I know you call them teething problems, per the thread title, but looking at the mistakes Management has made in this planes history does not bode well for the future of this aircraft.

a reply to: jacobe001

Yeah, there's a lot of BS in that video. It was posted before. Yes, Boeing made some mistakes, but the claims in that video are exaggerated.

Global supply chaining has been in use since the 90s, with the 777, and was at least partly used for other aircraft as well.

The Dreamliner global reliability is as close to prefect as you can get, with most operators being in the mid to high 90s, and only a couple in the low 90s.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Was the claim that Management signed off on moving ahead with production on the Composite Shell despite the fact that inspectors said no a Lie?

I guess what I really want to know is what is the truth in regards to the inspectors in the video regardless of how the Dream liner is performing in the present?

It gives me the willies to think of flying in something made of composite materials that has never been done on a commercial airline, and then have inspectors on top of that say there were problems that have been ignored.

a reply to: jacobe001

There's a little truth mixed in with lies. The engineers were confident about the composites. Composite has been used in many aircraft applications since the 80s. The Dreamliner uses more than other aircraft by weight, but it's st least as strong if not stronger than aircraft aluminum.

There was a lot of debate in Boeing about the amount of composites. Inspectors were worried about line inspections and minor repairs, as well as their cost, lightning strikes, etc. The engineers were confident they could come up with workarounds, and they were right. They've even done a major fuselage repair, and returned an aircraft to service with no problems.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: jacobe001

The engineers were confident they could come up with workarounds, and they were right. They've even done a major fuselage repair, and returned an aircraft to service with no problems.

Thanks
That would be pretty neat to watch them tear out and replace the fuselage on something made of mostly composite materials rather than aluminum panels as is done traditionally.

a reply to: jacobe001

It was pretty interesting to follow the debate on the best way to go through with it. There were pluses and minuses for pretty much every way come up with. In the end they went with fairly simple. They cut the section out, and laid a piece over the hole that was reinforced with aluminum stringers.

They even finished slightly ahead of schedule.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: jacobe001

It was pretty interesting to follow the debate on the best way to go through with it. There were pluses and minuses for pretty much every way come up with. In the end they went with fairly simple. They cut the section out, and laid a piece over the hole that was reinforced with aluminum stringers.

They even finished slightly ahead of schedule.

Aluminum Stringers?

I had to look that up. So they have to go back to using fasteners to attach the stringers to the composite material...of course, how else would they?

My knowledge is pretty limited on actual construction parts rather than the Big Basics.

I enjoy flying my PMDG 747-400 on the Vatsim Network though
www.vatsim.net...

Best Commercial Plane IMHO that was ever constructed considering how long it has been in service.

Ironically, having the worst aviation disaster in history as well with the Tenerife Runway Disaster, killing 583 people.

Edit - I guess it was 747-200's at Tenerife

a reply to: jacobe001

Yeah, all the aluminum components were attached with fasteners, which led to some interesting problems. They received a number of components from Spirit before they took them over that had the wrong fasteners. They had to remove them all and start over. That was one reason that the roll out plane was almost considered a mockup.

Yeah, they were -200s.

Just come up on my twitter the 787 that was diverted to Glasgow has had to go back to Warsaw just after taking off