Equivocater:
Agreed that negotiations have been going on for long time - I meant to say "the next intergovernmental meeting"; Sorry for my omission.
I'm located near where I say, a retired but still interested spectator who reads Pprune & the press.
Squirrel 41
Just to say that computer tech has baffled Boeing, Airbus and BAE in similar ways - the 747-8 rear fuselage is the same old 747 fuselage, designed when one drew the lines on paper: the mid-section (I think) was CAD-designed on one CATIA version, while the newest bits used a later CATIA, all are "accurate" but to different tolerances. Fixing this was hard because of the 787's need for more & more engineers' time (inter alia). Belated first flight is due very soon, I read.
Airbus Hamburg and Toulouse used CATIA 5 and 6 respectively, for economic reasons, and there was a big shock as you know when mating-up time came.
BAE found that the old Comet fuselage wing roots were all slightly different (though "accurate" in their hand-built way), and taking the mould lines from one didn't mean that the new CAD-designed wing would fit the other airframes. "New wine & old bottles" comes to mind - apart from "not shooting the pianists" ...
Trying times, specially for designers used to CAD reading straight(ish!) over to CAM.
Apologies to Mods for incipient thread drift - now back to watching for more & more good news (at last !) from the Home of British Marmalade .
