787 Dreamliner production concerns
 

Claims of Shoddy Production Draw Scrutiny to a Second Boeing Jet

New York Times reporting on shoddy production and weak oversight at Boeing's South Carolina plant that have threatened to compromise safety.of 787 Dreamliner aircraft.

It appears A350 sales are starting to accelerate and may in fact be an overall better aircraft than the B787. Passenger satisfaction levels for the A350 are greater than the B787. Watch this space !!!

Seriously?
Since the beginning of 2017, Boeing has announced 241 net orders for the 787.
Since the beginning of 2017, Airbus has announced 72 net orders for the A350.

I spend between 600-800h a year in the air as pax, vast majority in J or F, and as much as I can assure everyone here that the 787 is the worst product I've flown on in decades, this means squat to the managers that make the decision on what to buy. They base it purely on cost benefit. I am yet to experience the A350 - I've considered taking a detour on one of my next trips just for that purpose, I'm curious whether I perceive the 787 as so crappy just because of its small cabin size and noise level. For pax comfort, the A380 is hard to beat in my view. Spending serious time stuck inside aircraft, what matters to me is noise level, personal space, and lavatories. The 787 has shortcomings in all of those categories, regardless of operator.

I watched a good part of the AJ documentary which is several years old. If the QA problems were an issue where is the pushback from the customers, the incidents logged with the FAA ? Given no hull loses or fatalities you can't really fault the safety record. Seems the customers keep buying and I don't recall seeing any reports relating to incidents due to plant side QA\QC.
Boeing opened the plants to Charleston to get as far away from the Seattle unions as they possibly could. You have to wonder if that comes into play here.

If brand A sells an aircraft at a capital cost of X, and brand B sells a similar model for 10-20% cheaper, would that account for higher sales, even though the brand A model is "an overall better aircraft"? That seems to be what the comment suggests, not the raw number of sales.

By the same logic, the B737 sells more aircraft at less than half the price of the B787. Oh wait...

On the contrary, I think it's an important point to consider. A non-unionised employee has little scope for whistle-blowing (unless anonymously).

Sign of the times from the new schools of business. We had a project where the entire budget was blown on project managers and nobody was engaged to do the actual work.

I think you are correct. In the absence of good management a whistle-blower would have to rely on union support to ensure continuity of employment. The lack of union support and with poor management an employee would be unwilling to the a whistle-blower.

Given the issues with the FOD, tools, and other items found in the AF Tankers, I really dont think this is an issue of union vs non-union workers, or one location vs another.

Workers in Everett are hired the same way, the requirements are the same, and work their way through the union ranks. Training by Boeing remains the same at all facilities. It is the same techniques taught to install and fabricate the aircraft.

When they stopped accounting for tools was a big step backwards.

The memos that were shown by Aljazeera were not specific to South Carolina, but on the Dreamliner production everywhere. The Union is also protecting itself in Everett, but is likely another line of defense. Noting the issues with the AF tankers, those were built and quality control inspection by Boeing Everett and union personnel.

I have seen numerous posts here by people finding all kinds of stuff inside wings and fuel tanks.....

Production rates for an entire commercial aircraft, more than one a day on some models, is insane.

Much as Boeing (pretending to only be an integrator, and absolving themselves from responsibility for any suppliers product) would like to blame Rolls Royce for the engine issues, they can't escape the fact that THEY put them on the aircraft, and they are ultimately responsible for ensuring they were fit for purpose and would not fail, before making them available an option.

It really stinks of the "Race to the bottom" bean counter culture, we see far too much of these days.

What next, oh sorry, the Project Manager for that aircraft was only a contractor, so "not our problem" that the aircraft crashed?

Sorry Gordon, but your post is almost a non-sequitur (and I notice your post altered what I quoted in my post). Which aircraft is 'better' is a matter of opinion and debate based on a number of factors - seat mile costs, dispatch reliability and overall reliability, overall cost of ownership. In an era where the vast majority of ticket purchases are based on little more than price, the operators probably don't care that much that the A350 might be more comfortable for the passenger (I have little doubt the 787 passenger experience would be much better if most operators had kept it at the 8 across seating it was really designed for, but then you have to go back to that part about purchase decisions being based on price). BTW, do you have a source for your claim that the 787 sells for 10-20% less than the comparable A350?
What I specifically was responding to was this:
which is demonstrably false. In fact, net announced orders for the A350 so far in 2019 are negative (-4 to be specific) while Boeing shows 38 net orders for the 787 so far in 2019. Despite the continued trashing of the 787 by some posters on this form, it's clear that the operators are in fact rather happy with the aircraft and ordering more - to the extent it's outsold the A350 by a factor of 3 to 1 over the last 30 months.

BTW, regarding that AlJazeera report, scuttlebutt at the time was that the employee interviews in South Carolina were a hit job orchestrated by the Seattle area machinist union to discredit the non-union workers (several Seattle area machinists were sent to South Carolina to teach the local workers how to do the job, and hence were able to point AlJazeera at disgruntled workers to get the desired story).

I don't have any data on passenger cost per seat mile, I was merely pointing out that upfront capital costs may have something to do with the difference in sales volumes. The difference in year of first introduction into service (2011 vs 2015) also makes a difference, but I left that out of my comment, since I thought that was obvious to all concerned. Any chart that starts from zero, with a different base-date, will have dips and peaks in growth.

I quoted exactly what the original comment read, since the forum does not copy multiple quoted text:
If you chose to selectively quote only part of that original comment, to advance a narrow argument, and ignored the rest of the context, then you are playing with semantics, and missing the point entirely in your response to me, and to the original poster. I stand behind my comment. Its fine for you to disagree...

I've noticed exactly the same thing, for a modern aircraft, they are certainly very noisy in the cabin....

tdracer. Airbus has in excess of 927 orders for the A350 with 38 gained during March 19. Keeping in mind the B787 is being produced on 2 production lines and sold cheaper than the A350 I have no doubt the B787 will win the sales race.

You could try doing it the other way round - spend 0p on project managers, call the resulting chaos "agile", and see how much you deliver on spec, on time and on budget!

(Answer: actually you don't fail to do these things, because there wasn't any spec and there wasn't any plan.)

Or no one believed in the plan and fanciful ideas of the clueless management in the first place

and according to FAA and Boeing, it can still be a CAT C!

I see Japan Airlines has just taken delivery of their first A350 which also happens to be their first ever Airbus. If it were not for the problems Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airlines experienced with the early B787 deliveries I have no doubt Japan Airlines would have remained a loyal Boeing customer.

Absolutely agree with every point. Especially the VNAV. What an absolute joke. I'm completely certain they slapped the B777 software in and called it done. Very dicey when starting descent from above FL40, will quite happily take you into excessive rates right into Mmo. You can compensate with lower speeds or earlier descent. So why exactly is it even there? Then the speedbrake message comes out, because apparently after multiple years in service it's just too hard to tweak the software to operate correctly to account for the need for drag. It's to the point where I just fly it in manual modes with the calculated path as a rough guide. No problem, but again, how is this proffered by Boeing engineers in 2019 with a straight face? But then when you ask most line engineers what some fault means, they just shrug. They have no idea either. Do a reset, sign the tech log, kick it out the door. "Solved".

I would also add to your list the cursor-driven FMC. Slower and more fiddly than what it replaces yet considered progress. And plasticky, cheap-feeling finish to...everything. Cockpit sunshades same as they give away as promotions at Tesco, says it all.

Incredible really that this is what a couple hundred million buys and is sold as state of the art. Feels more like cheap, gimmicky ****. Complete with water-cooled electronics, like some kid's overclocked gaming computer.

But hey, you can auto-program SLOP in now. So there's that. And the HUD is...cool I guess?

The ultimate example of when a magnificent brand is destroyed by corporatism. Never thought I'd live long enough to see a Boeing product referred to by colleagues as a flying trash can.

I found the 32-year-veteran Boeing aeronautical engineer declaring that SHE had been avoiding the 787 pretty thought-provoking.

Dunno. If you have a bunch of drug-addled employees installing fasteners any old way and this going unregarded owing to deadline pressure, does it have to have immediate consequences? Would it be noticed on a D-Check? Could it be that one fine day the Charleston-built ones start falling from the sky?

When was the last time JAL purchased a non-American aircraft?

You must have some pretty crap lineys then. The second part of your statement sounds exactly like the 787 fim. Do the system test, if it passes it was an intermittent fault. Return to service. Some tests even tell you to run the test more than once if it fails :rolleyes:

Agree with most of the sentiments though. The cabins are dreadfully built. Windscreens are made of cheese and those sun visors need burning. I have to disagree on the noise though having done recent flights on 744 346 773 the 787 is leagues quieter. Although not at quiet as the 388.

Nope, not taxing but you serve my point well - it's just too hard to account for the wing's characteristics in the software? Don't seem to hear many of my AB colleagues with similar complaints, much as it pains me to admit. I didn't even mention the bizarro logic of reducing thrust and pitching down when already far below profile and the addition of thrust when high and fast.

Line techs were (still are, I left) Boeing GoldCare. Freely admitted that many of the obscure fault messages were a mystery to them. To be fair, some of those have since been solved with software updates.

Like the Max, Boeing sells this thing as catering to the lowest common denominator pilot but some of the most basic functions of VNAV are crude at best, just plain wrong at worst. Not an issue for those who understand energy management but in the hands of the many magenta line children out there it's a recipe for tears eventually.

The Normalisation of Deviance.

Dianne Vaughan explains how systemic failure saw NASA launch an orbiter it knew was not safe on that day. The result the Challenger loss.

These changes occur an increment at a time.
Nobody thinks their particular corner cut makes the difference.

It begins with endless focus on reduction of cost. Drilled into them at the business school, out they flow with economic orthodoxy. They continue the relentless cost reduction, bonus culture and eventually that permeates everywhere.
Customers of the aircraft, consumers of airline product, managers, pilots and even engineers all hearing the same beat of the drum.

Bit by bit margins are reduced.

Boeing has far bigger systemic problems than the share price.

VNAV PTH descent:Probably "cut and pasted" from 777 FMC software algorisms, so that explains the lack of understanding (software program) of the "wing design" on the 787 and the differences VNAV has on wing efficiency, betwixt 777 and 787 (both wing designs are super brilliant).The same applies to the 747-8 (over speeds on VNAV PTH descent) leading to VNAV SPD and the impending VMO/MMO!

https://www.theguardian.com/business...7-safety-fears
...so, in an aircraft with a history of fires, having a faulty fire suppression system isn't a grounding issue?

Boeing "put passenger safety first" - doesn't sound like it so far this year.

It's by far the worst commercial aircraft currently flying for radio faults that I've noticed at least. Screeching/howling blocking the pilots transmissions or at least making it very difficult to read them, radios getting jammed on one frequency, radios giving up entirely so alternate needs to be used.